


Huntsman, What Quarry?, Part II

by 852_Prospect_Archivist



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: Angst, Drama, M/M, Romance, h/c
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2000-12-30
Updated: 2000-12-30
Packaged: 2017-12-11 00:40:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 77,484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/792037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/852_Prospect_Archivist/pseuds/852_Prospect_Archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Caught in the cross-hairs between two lethal enemies, Jim and Blair have to rely on two men they can't trust to save the lives of their friends.<br/>This story is a sequel to Huntsmand, What Quarry?, Part I.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

  
This story has been split into 4 pages.

## Huntsman, What Quarry?, Part II

by Kadru

Author's webpage: <http://www.mindspring.com/~kadru/index.html>

Series: Project 57: The Redemption 

Disclaimer: Jim, Blair, Simon and Rafe all belong to Pet Fly. This piece of fiction was written without production, accumulation or even smell of money. Other characters belong to me and I will hex you if you hurt them. 

Summary: Danger makes for some uncomfortable bedfellows as Didion and Sebastian return to Jim and Blair's lives. 

Warning: NC-17 for graphic sex, but I guess it wouldn't really be hardcore slash if there weren't any of that stuff, huh? Lots of dirty words, as usual. And violence. And yes, angst angst and more angst. 

Notes: Send cards and letters to Rie, Jack and Christi for helping me birth this monster. This fall, the darn thing was stuck in a breach position, and these folks helped me turn it around so it would come out. And a big hug and thank you to Christi for washing this baby off when it was all done. She's my hero. 

Again, if you have not read Loving You Less Than Life, Time Does Not Bring Relief, and Huntsman, What Quarry, Part I, STOP RIGHT NOW. This is a long, involved murder mystery/conspiracy plot and you'll just ruin it. Considering that we're topping the 1,000 page mark, I'd hate to see all that hard work go to waste for both of us. 

Finally, a huge wave and shout to the Atlanta Sen-Fen who gave me advice on where to set the scenes in this segment. I realize that I am making a slight flub in referring to the Bank of America Plaza as the NationsBank Tower. When they built the thing, that's what the called it, and now only Atlanta newbies call it by that Bank of America Plaza thing. I'm an old lady and crotchety in my ways, so sue me. 

Without further ado, the curtain opens. . . 

* * *

Huntsman, What Quarry? Part II - Page One  
Wednesday, October 28, 1998  
Cascade, Washington 

The green doors separating the emergency room remained eerily still. Several ER doctors and nurses stared at it, waiting. One doctor cracked his knuckles. The pops echoed off hard walls. Five minutes before, they had received the call. One of their own was being rushed to them. Dr. Ian Yoshito. The young doctor. Endearingly polite with his formal British accent. Sly with a dry wit. Quick to wink his dark eyes and smile. He had garnered so much sympathy from the other hospital employees because of the rough year he had endured. A waiting nurse focused on the chips in the dark paint on the door, and how gurney-chipped gouges revealed the door had once been painted pumpkin orange. The glass squares in the center of the door, etched with a steel diamond-grid pattern, had no glossy sheen because the sunlight had been blocked by heavy clouds. 

She took a deep, calming breath as she directed her eyes to the gritty concrete floor. 

Turning and looking down the hallway, she did not hear the whine of the ambulance's brakes. 

With a bash the emergency room doors slammed open, slapping against the walls and making her jump. The room exploded from stillness to bursting motion. One of the ER doctors shoved past her, knocking her shoulder to the right as he met the gurney being thrust inside. The senior nurse pushed the EMT aside who was pumping air into Dr. Yoshito's lungs, taking over for him. "I'm not getting a pulse!" the doctor shouted. "Get him on a table, STAT!" Their feet stamped on the hard floor as they ran. 

In an instant they were gone, and the narrow hallway between the emergency room and the ambulance dock grew silent once again, as if motion and noise had become fluid, flooding the room before suddenly ebbing. 

The nurse held her breath. She had seen the dark hair and the cream colored skin. She had seen all that blood like a gory painting. 

"Oh my god," she whispered. "It _was_ him." 

She closed her eyes and began to pray. 

* * *

Five minutes later, another ambulance pulled into the dock. EMT's poured out the back, then wrestled with the gurney. Just as they adjusted the rack to drop the wheels to the ground, an unmarked police car raced towards them. Before the car had even come to a complete stop, Jim Ellison flung open the passenger side door and dashed out, almost tripping on the moving ground beneath his feet but catching his balance quickly. In moments he ran beside Blair Sandburg's gurney as the EMT's pushed it into the emergency room. 

A grim, determined expression creased the young man's face, and he anxiously pushed his long hair from his eyes. He recognized Jim just as the detective grabbed his hand, and Blair squeezed hard. 

"I'm here, Chief. I got here as fast as I could." 

"Hurts," he muttered as he sat up on his elbows to look at his gauze-bandaged leg. 

Jim let go of his lover's hand long enough to push open a second pair of emergency room doors. As he did, he was blocked by one of the male nurses. Jim flashed his badge as he shoved the man aside. "What happened?" he asked Blair. 

"Nic shot me." 

"Nic? Nic shot you? Why?" 

Suddenly a doctor's hand landed square in the center of Jim's chest, thrusting him back. "Move," he ordered. Then he said to the EMT's, "Set him up on this table." 

Blair shouted over the doctor's commands. "His name's not Nic. It's Phoenix." The EMT's grabbed him by the shoulders and legs and hoisted him from the gurney to the examining table. Blair's mouth gasped open with sudden pain and all color rushed from his face. 

"Phoenix?" Jim's face went ashen for a second as the realization hit him. "I don't . . . You mean he was one of them?" 

Blair nodded, then grimaced as the doctor stripped away the bloody gauze. 

"Nurse," the doctor barked, "his blood pressure is weak. Set him up for a half-pint of plasma. Has he been here before? Do we have records on his blood type?" 

A red-haired nurse edged her way around Jim. "Oh, he's been here before," she grumbled. "I know both their blood types by heart." 

Blair glanced at her and forced a smile before a painful pulse reshaped it into a grimace. He had seen her face, countless times before, but he couldn't place her name. 

The nurse tried to edge closer to him, but Jim blocked her way. "Will you move?" she growled at Ellison. 

Jim ignored her. "What happened? Where's Collin?" 

"They took him." Then Blair recognized the nurse as she stripped the plastic from an IV needle. "Janice? It is Janice, right?" 

Janice puffed a strand of red hair from her face. "Weren't you just in here?" she muttered. 

"Frequent flier points." No one, not even Blair, smiled. 

Jim clutched Janice's shoulder so he could still maintain eye contact with Blair. "What did they do with Collin? Did you see a car? What about a license plate?" 

"Black Mercedes. No license plate," Blair managed to say before Janice wheeled around and punched Jim in the chest with her small fist. 

"Will you get out of the way!" she snapped. 

The doctor forced down his grin as he examined the bullet hole in Blair's thigh. "Thank you, nurse," he said. "The bullet missed the bone and went straight through. I just need to stop the bleeding and patch him up." 

Jim started to move closer when Blair stopped him with a nod of his head. "Jim, go check on Ian." 

"You sure?" 

They both noticed how Janice and the doctor froze to stare at each other with somber expressions. "Yeah, I'll be fine," Blair answered. "Please, go tell me what's happening." 

"Dr. Yoshito's in surgery right now," the doctor answered grimly. "Janice, we need to prep him with morphine first." 

Janice slipped away without making a comment, and as she pulled back the blue cloth curtain that separated Blair from the other ER patients, a tall black man in a brown suit stepped quickly aside to miss her. 

"Captain?" Jim seemed shocked to see him. 

"How's the kid?" Simon asked before he studied the doctor hovering over Blair's red thigh. He wrinkled his face at the sight. 

"He just said it was a clean flesh wound. Any word?" 

Simon pulled Jim aside. He waited and watched as the nurse plunged a needle into Blair's hip. Once Simon saw Blair's tightened face slowly relax, he continued. "No word. We had two patrol cars in pursuit and both of them had their tires shot out from under them. I'm sorry, Jim, but they're gone." 

Jim closed his eyes as his jaw clenched. He took several deep breaths. When Jim finally opened his eyes, Simon saw the look of resolve there. "I need to check on Ian," he said before moving past his captain. 

* * *

Rallingsburg, Virginia 

The rolling hills of the Appalachian Mountains and the thick mix of pine and oak trees provided ample cover as streams of camouflage-coated men slipped quietly into place. Their movement had been painfully slow. First, they had had to seek out and kill the usual spies who had been assigned to watch over them and report. Captain Didion Sachs had originally ordered his men not to lash out on these hired observers, even though he could certainly sympathize with their hunger to do so. For years, he had dreamed of killing the CIA agent he knew lurked somewhere outside the range of his hearing. When the Project had first been organized, these members of the CIA had been enlisted to seek out and uncover Order members. But as the Rangers became more difficult to manage, less eager to answer their masters' heel, the CIA's eyes and ears were turned inward. They became the watchdogs who barked when a Ranger stretched his chain too far. 

After the last remote clinic in upstate New York had been taken and Sachs was ready to attack the central campus in Rallingsburg, he gave the command. "Remove the espionage agents." 

In one otherwise quiet night, hundreds of eyes dimmed across the United States, and this time, it was the Project who lost its senses. 

Once the Rangers disabled the espionage arm, Sachs ordered his men to disperse in groups of two or three, slip into small, poorly secured airports throughout the country, and silently make their way to Maryland. There, they rendezvoused, and in three separate wings, they cut across the Potomac under the cover of night, avoiding farm houses, running across roads like scampering deer. 

Raising his eyes to the sky, Didion watched as the evening's color changed from cobalt blue to a rich purple. Soon the sun would set, and his men could move into attack formation. According to his own spies, Dr. Howard Coles, the prime physician and researcher leading the Project, would be meeting tomorrow with the other leaders -- fellow doctors, businessmen, CIA agents, one army general, and one representative from Congress. 

But for now, he would wait, watching like a hungry puma as the daylight grew faint. 

* * *

Cascade, Washington 

Later that evening, Jim slipped into Blair's hospital room, carrying a pair of blue jeans and a sweater. The EMT's had cut the jeans he had been wearing, and Blair had asked that the nurses throw away his sweater. It had been coated with Ian's blood. 

Blair's blue eyes darted over the wire rim of his glasses, but his head didn't move at all. A curtain of curly hair hung across his forehead, drooping past his cheek bones. 

"Hey, Chief," Jim said softly. "I brought you some clothes." 

"You could have waited until tomorrow," Blair replied, the tone of his voice a little hardened. 

Jim sighed, his jaw tight, before he said, "What difference does it make if they let you go home tonight? You would have just stayed here anyway." 

Blair knew he was right. He turned his eyes back to the glossy magazine in his lap, a magazine he hadn't been reading at all -- just studying pictures and ads. His breathing remained paced and even, but Jim could hear his heartbeat race. Blair's hands gripped the pages, squeezing them as his knuckles blanched. His lips slowly turned inwards until his mouth tightened in line across his face. 

Seconds later, he flung the magazine across the room. The square edge of the magazine's binding smacked against the wall, then the pages fluttered like startled birds as it dropped to the ground. "God damnit!" He crossed his arms over his chest. 

Jim forced his hands into his jeans' pockets. "Feel better?" 

Blair's eyes narrowed dangerously, and Jim quickly pulled his hands free of his pockets and held them up in a defensive posture. Without saying a word, he sat down on the edge of Blair's bed. 

"Did you check on Ian while you were out?" Blair asked, his voice still hard. 

"Haven't I been checking on him every hour?" Jim held his hand out to him. 

Blair didn't answer. He just looked away, but his hand moved across the blanket to find Jim's. 

"No change," Jim added. "He's still in a coma." Jim's fingers brushed across the back of Blair's knuckles. 

"And Collin?" 

"Still no word." 

Blair closed his eyes and dropped his head back on the pillow. Jim watched as his lover's eyelids tightened into a mass of wrinkles, and his chin twisted to hold back his emotions. Hoping to comfort the man, Jim gripped Blair's arm. 

"I can't --" Blair began, "-- I can't stop thinking about what they're doing to him." 

"Don't," Jim warned him. "That's exactly what they want you to do. You have to focus on getting him back, and not on what's happening to him now. Trust me on this. I've been there." He tried to smile, and when he did, Jim realized that he just didn't feel like smiling either and the crease faded. "If you try to imagine what's going on, you'll only see things that are worse than what's really happening." 

Blair shook his head. "I know. It's just that I can't help it." 

Jim kissed the back of his hand. The black hairs tickled his dry lips. "I know. I've been there." 

"So what do we do?" 

"We wait for them to contact us. We wait for Ian to get better." He squeezed Blair's arm. "And he _will_ get better. Tomorrow, I'll go back to Ian's condo, see if I can't uncover some leads in the parking lot." 

"Good luck," Blair said with a petulant tone of voice as he cast his eyes towards the window. "It's raining, but then what else is new?" 

Standing up and leaning over the bed, Jim kissed Blair on the forehead. "I _will_ find Collin." He traced his lover's jaw with the back of his fingers. 

Blair forced a smile. "I know. I know. I just . . . I hate this waiting." 

* * *

Rallingsburg, Virginia  
Thursday, October 29, 1998 

At the end of a long polished mahogany table, Doctor Howard Coles sat in a glossy black leather chair, reading the reports that had just been handed to him. He peered up at the white clock on the wall. In the hallway, he could hear the voices of the other doctors who were expected to join him for yet another meeting on what was being called "the mutiny." He hated that word, hated how it seemed to indict him like an unforgiving judge. Emotions ran high in the clinic, and tempers flared easily, now that they had received word that the rogue Rangers were suspected in Virginia. Dr. Coles pressed his back into the chair, then ran his steady hand across his thinning gray hair. He was a heavy-set man with a reddish tint to his cheeks, and although his rage was intense, only his gray eyes gave any indication of his emotional state. 

The other senior physicians began to file into the room, their foldered reports clutched defensively to their chests. They sat quietly in their seats, facing forward, none of them able to look at each other, and certainly not towards Dr. Coles. 

Dr. Coles' upper lip rose in a sneer at their infantile fear and panic. 

He took a deep yet patronizing breath as the other Project leaders filed through the doorway -- mostly businessmen, but one politician and one Army general, as well as two members of the CIA. 

House Representative David Kline was the most obviously agitated man in the room. Before he even took a seat, he shot out, "Where are your men?" 

Dr. Coles sighed, then asked, "What men?" 

"Where are the guards?" 

"Sit down, congressman. I have everything in control." 

"No, I will not sit down! This clinic is barely even staffed, much less protected. What the hell is going on? Why are we meeting here?" 

"Now is not the time to panic, Kline!" Dr. Cole barked. "Now sit down!" 

Congressman Kline glanced around the room at the other men, then tightened his necktie before sitting. "I want a full briefing and I want it now." 

A thin, dark haired man, wearing a blue suit, grinned catlike to the congressman before he spoke. He was the most senior member of the CIA on the Project. "What is going on, is that all the Rangers have turned against these good doctors. Isn't that correct, Dr. Coles?" 

Dr. Coles tried to suppress a snarl. 

"We already know that," complained Kline. 

"How many do you have left, Doctor?" the CIA official asked, tapping his finger on a green file folder. When he wouldn't answer, the agent asked General Carson, who sat to his right, "How many, General?" 

"Twelve." 

"Twelve?" The CIA agent flipped open the file. "According to our last report --" he scanned several pages, "-- ah, here it is, we had . . . 2,500. Twenty-five hundred, Dr. Coles. And you now have twelve? Twelve?" 

"Who in this room is responsible for espionage?!" Dr. Coles shouted. "Who?!" 

The CIA agent smiled and he purred, "Why, I believe I am." 

"Then why are you hounding me with these questions when you are the one responsible for briefing this Project?!" 

The agent's eyebrow arched, and while staring straight into Dr. Coles' eyes, he asked, "General Carson, according to our figures, you've lost 500 non-hypersensitive soldiers to the Rangers. Is that correct?" 

"Yes," the general answered reluctantly. "We had to send in non-hypersensitives because the others would turn automatically whenever they got near the target zones." 

"And you stopped, didn't you?" 

"I had no choice. The body count was beginning to be noticed by the media." 

"I see. Five-hundred is a lot of men. How many men did we lose in the Gulf War, general?" Without waiting for an answer, the agent directed another question to Dr. Coles. "How many physicians have you lost?" 

The doctor only stared at him. 

"According to my numbers," the agent added, "you've have 42 defections and . . ." The agent scanned the room, intimidating the others. "16 deaths." 

Then the general bristled, "How many agents have you lost? How many?" He leaned forward. "I hear a rumor that all of your field agents have been found dead." The general flipped open his own file. "According to my records, you had over a thousand during our last briefing. How many do you have now? And why aren't you briefing us on _that_ number?" 

One of the other doctors panicked. "Enough of this! What are you doing to stop them?" 

Dr. Coles held up his hand to silence them, but before he had a chance to speak, the senior CIA agent stole the moment. "Apparently nothing," the agent said. "All attempts have been met with utter, abysmal failure. For all intents and purposes, the Rangers have disappeared." 

"Disappeared?" Congressman Kline asked. "What's going on here?" 

The senior CIA agent turned to General Carson. "You mean, you didn't tell the group?" His tone of voice was snide and mocking, and the general just waved him off. 

One of the frightened doctors said, "I hear a rumor that the Rangers are in Virginia." 

"What is going on here?" Kline asked again, his hands shaking. 

The agent rolled his eyes. "What's going on, Congressman, is that Sachs' men are on the move. They've always known that the espionage arm of this Project has been for the past two years watching them instead of the Order. They have been killing my men, one by one, just like they did the men in Alaska, and in Austin, and in upstate New York. Now there's only one place left for them to take." 

"What do you mean?" Kline asked. 

"The wolf is on your doorstep." Then he grinned. "Huff. Puff." 

"Will you shut up?" one of the doctors barked. "You're not even helping!" 

"Help?" the agent threw back. "You want my help? My advice to you, good doctors, is that you throw yourselves at the mercy of Captain Sachs before you find yourselves there, bleeding to death--" 

"Enough!" Dr. Coles shouted. "Enough! I will not give up to them. Ever!" 

"You may not have any choice, Dr. Coles," the agent replied. "You have twelve Rangers left, who my reports say are here in this clinic, as we speak." 

"Yes, I know that already." 

"Do you know how loyal they are?" 

"They've been at my side since the day Captain Sachs killed the first Ranger in Cascade." 

"At your side, huh? Did you ever stop to think that maybe that's where Captain Sachs wanted them to be?" 

Dr. Coles' plump, reddish face suddenly went pale. "What do you know?" he said, the features of his face curving with menace. 

"I know that if I were planning a coup d'etat, I would want the king's guards on my side." "Why don't we have more men here?" a doctor asked. "Why isn't this place guarded by the Army?" 

"Because, doctor," the general answered, "we can't catch Sachs in the field, but we can certainly corner him if he tries to take this place. I have units spread out all over this area, just waiting to close in." 

"Wh-what? You mean . . . you're using us as bait?" 

Suddenly, the rapid blasting of gunfire echoed in the halls. Almost everyone in the room, with the exception of the senior CIA agent, General Carson and Dr. Coles, leapt to their feet and rushed towards the door. Before they could exit, two of Dr. Coles' own guards rushed inside, their handguns raised and loaded. "Stand back!" one of them shouted before slamming the door closed. He pushed a doctor back to the table. "Sit down and stay out of the way." Then both guards pressed their backs against the door to peer out through the blinds of the glass windows leading into the hall. 

"What's going on?" Dr. Coles shouted. 

"They had the codes, sir," the guard answered. "They knew this meeting was being held and they waited for you. Somehow they disarmed all the security systems and then started pouring over the compound walls." 

The senior CIA agent leaned closer to Dr. Coles and asked, "Wasn't that how they stormed all the other sites?" 

"Shut up," Dr. Coles spit back. 

"I told you to test all of your men!" the CIA agent replied, his words suddenly hot. "This gamble depends on their absolute loyalty!" 

The gunfire grew louder and louder as the rouge agents approached, then suddenly, there was silence. 

The doctors, businessmen, agents and leaders in the boardroom sat quietly in the hush, only their heartbeats and rapid breathing making sounds in the room. They waited, and waited. 

When the cell phone on one of the guard's hip rang, most of the doctors jumped from surprise. 

"This is Corporal Evans," he answered. Then he smiled at the other men in the room, pivoting on his heels to aim his weapon at them. "Yes sir, I have them all collected in the central board room. Where I said they would be." 

Both CIA agents leapt from their chairs, reaching into their jackets for their guns. In unison, the two guards at the door fired. One bullet pierced the younger agent in the upper arm, while the senior agent slumped in his chair, his chest bleeding. 

"Guns on the floor! Now!" Corporal Evans ordered. The senior agent dropped his by his chair, his eyes staring up at the ceiling. The younger one continued to hold his gun as blood drained down his arm. Without waiting to give a second warning, the corporal fired again, striking the agent in the shoulder as the gun fell. 

Both guards inched closer, their guns loaded and ready to fire, until they could kick the agents' weapons away. Once safe, Corporal Evans picked up his cell phone and said, "All clear. The two agents are down. They're the only ones armed." After that, the corporal flipped his cell phone closed, and directed his gun at the other men in the room. 

Within moments, footsteps thundered in cadence in the hallway. The noise grew louder and closer until again, there was a silent pause before the dark wooden door flew open and three Rangers sprang inside, their guns drawn. "All clear!" one of them called out, and in seconds the room filled with camouflage-green soldiers. 

Dr. Coles didn't seem to notice. He stared forward at the door, waiting for one man he knew had to arrive eventually. There would have been no reason to capture them all at once unless some sort of confrontation was in store. 

He didn't have to wait long before he noticed the tall, muscular man with strands of dark blond hair curling softly underneath the rim of his green cap, despite being cut so short. Black glasses covered the blond's eyes, and green paint smudged his face, but Dr. Coles still knew who he was. He had seen that profile, staring back at him from medical file photos over the past few weeks. 

Didion Sachs stepped into the room. He glanced around from side to side, at all the other men, then back at Dr. Coles. "Dr. Coles, I believe?" 

"Captain Sachs." 

On hearing his name, General Carson rose from his seat. "Captain," he began, "I'm ordering you to stand down." 

"Sit down, General," Didion answered him softly. 

"This is mutiny, Captain!" 

"I know what it is." 

"What do you think you're doing, then?!" 

"Begging your pardon, General, but what did you think you were doing by taking your men, giving them cancer, and then blackmailing them with their own lives? Did they teach you how to do that in West Point? Perhaps your ethics class . . . _sir_?" 

The general stiffened as he glared at Didion. "How dare you question me! You won't get away with this." 

"If you're waiting on all those strike forces you've hidden in the towns nearby, don't hold your breath." "What?!" 

"Sabotage is a very effective weapon." 

"I'll see you hanged for this!" 

Didion waved his hand. "I'm not having this conversation with you, sir." He directed his voice to everyone else in the room. "Now listen up, because I'm only saying this once. For years now, you've been taking innocent soldiers and poisoning them. Now it's your turn." 

"What?" the Congressman asked. 

"Today, you get the injections. Your injections. The ones you knew caused men cancer, even though you knew how to make a man hypersensitive without killing him. Because you wanted a leash. Well, guess what, gentlemen? I'd like to know what it feels like to be the one holding that leash for a change. And just like those men, if you have an allergic reaction, you die. Only this time, you'll know what's happening to you, whereas we never had that luxury." 

"You can't do this to me!" the Congressman objected. "I'm an elected official." 

Didion leaned across the table, his white-toothed grin frightening as it broke the green darkness of his painted face. "Imagine it, Congressman. Next month, you'll be able to hear all those back-door deals. You'll be able to read all the notes passed back and forth by the pages hundreds of feet away. You'll know who's lying and who isn't." Then Didion straightened his spine. "But for your sake, you better hope you get re-elected, because _our_ Project doesn't have any need for former congressmen." Didion lowered his voice to a hissing whisper. "I'm told when the cancer is in its final stage, the migraine headaches are so painful they leave you blind." 

The congressman swallowed as his skin grew white and tinged with clammy sweat. 

"You won't get away with this, Sachs," Dr. Coles said coldly. 

Didion stared at him for a moment, then he drew his pistol out of his holster. "I have something else in mind for you, Dr. Coles." Very calmly, he aimed the gun. "I just wish all the other men could see this happen. The live ones, that is. I believe the rest are waiting for you on the other side." 

Dr. Coles sat back in his chair and his fingers formed a temple just underneath his chin. "I'll see you in hell, Didion Sachs." 

"Keep a seat warm for me," Didion replied, and he pulled the trigger. 

The other Project leaders jerked at the gun-clap. 

* * *

Cascade, Washington 

Jim slowly walked down the carpeted hospital corridor to Blair's room, carrying two styrofoam cups of coffee. Occasionally, he would sip his, but the coffee was still too hot for his sensitive lips. He had spent the night with Blair, huddled uncomfortably in a vinyl chair. For the most part, Blair had been sullen and uncommunicative, but Jim did his best to act patiently. Blair had every reason to want to shut down. The only times he did speak were to prod at Jim, to goad him into a response that might express Blair's own internalized anger. Jim would only sigh and take it. He knew first hand what Blair was feeling. How many times had he behaved the very same way when he was either sick or wounded? 

Taking another sip of coffee just outside Blair's room, Jim had one thought as the revelation opened inside him of how he had treated Blair whenever he had felt frustrated and afraid. 

/I finally get karma. Shit does come back to you./ 

He stepped into the room, and stopped. 

It was empty. 

Even Blair's crutches were gone. 

For a brief second Jim panicked as the nightmare of Blair being the second kidnapping victim flamed in his mind. He opened his senses to track his guide just moments before the bathroom door opened and Blair wrestled with his crutches. He had already changed out of his hospital gown and into the jeans and sweater that Jim had brought him last night. 

Trying to hide his exhalation of relief, Jim set the two cups of coffee on the nearby rolling tray that still held Blair's half-eaten breakfast. He turned and offered Blair a hand. 

"I got it," Blair snapped. 

Jim ignored the comment. "I got us some coffee." 

"The nurses came by with the paperwork for me to sign. She's bringing the wheelchair around." He lowered himself into the vinyl chair with a hiss. 

The sentinel handed him the cup of coffee, and Blair took it without another word. They remained in silence with only the shifting sounds of sipped coffee breaking the monotony. By the time they had finished their small cups, a nurse knocked on the opened door and pushed the wheelchair into the room. This time Jim wouldn't listen to Blair's protests as he helped the man out of the vinyl chair. His strong arm slipped around his waist, then he eased his lover down, taking both wooden crutches in the grip of one hand. 

Blair blew out his breath, pushing his hair out of his eyes. "For once, I'm not going to argue about the wheelchair." 

The nurse pulled him backwards to the hallway before wheeling him around. "Which exit is your car?" she asked Jim. 

Blair interrupted. "What floor is Ian on?" "He's on the second floor," Jim answered. "ICU." 

"Second floor it is." 

"Aren't you going home?" the nurse asked. 

Jim smiled faintly at the nurse as he took her place behind Blair's wheelchair. "We've already had this argument." 

"I take it he won," the nurse replied as she watched Jim roll Blair down the hallway. When she turned, she whispered with a smile, ". . . again." 

Out of normal hearing range, Jim still heard her remark. He could only groan to himself. 

* * *

Rallingsburg, Virginia 

For a few quiet, stolen moments, Didion thought of Sebastian. He knew he remained safe in Alaska, away from the melee. The Alaskan compound was so remote that no one could approach it without alarms sounding. If anyone tried to compromise that area, there would be enough time to get the guides away. For Didion, though, this was the final showdown. The U.S. Army would not sit back any longer. The hostages they held now were not doctors working on top secret projects. They were businessmen, congressmen, and officers who would all be missed. In a way, Didion had taken a small sense of relief that the Army had not attacked in full force, choosing to bid their time while there was no public attention. But another part inside him filled with rage that the government had so little regard for their simple, human lives. Because they were cloaked in secrecy, these doctors and soldiers could all have perished with only token and subtly worded letters mailed out to their families, consoling them for their brave and patriotic losses. 

In this moment of silence as he lay across the uncomfortable sofa in Dr. Coles' office, deep in the interior of the complex, Didion wanted only one person to be here. To be wrapped in his arms. To feel the rhythmic flow of air in and out of his lungs. To sense the live warmth of his skin and the pulsing beat of his heart. 

Leaving Alaska, he had kissed him, deeply, in front of every other soldier, unabashed and open and honest and proud. Hands clutched each other. There were no tears in either of their eyes. Only strength and resolve. As they had discussed the night before, this was the way both of them wanted to remember the other. Alive. Strong. Determined. 

With his eyes closed, Didion drifted back with that memory, then further still, to nights when the only thing he had to cling to was this man who knew he was a killer, who knew he had to kill again and again to secure each day of his own life, and yet, still loved him with all of his heart. The strength and power of that devotion, of that unconditional love, still made his chest ache. 

Suddenly, the door flung open, and a tall black man leaned into the room and shouted, "Yo! Didion! Get up, man!" 

Didion rolled off the sofa quickly, rubbing his eyes. "What is it?" 

"Company's here." 

The two of them ran down the tiled hallway, racing towards the security station where video screens monitored the compound. Didion glanced over at the man running beside him. Mark Kiegan. They had become friends in basic training so many years ago, but they had lost contact afterwards, assigned to opposite sides of the world. Then, three years later, Didion got a desperate call from him. 

Kiegan had just been released from Rallingsburg. He had found out that Didion had been released a few months earlier. Kiegan needed help, advice . . . a shoulder. 

A year later, Didion had watched Kiegan fall in love for the first time with another man. Didion was dead set against it from the start. To begin with, there was no sense in bringing another person into this cruel hell. Sexual relations with another man, well, that was another subject he wasn't ready to handle yet, but Kiegan was his best friend. He had to be supportive. Then he had had a chance to see Kiegan together with his partner, Samuel, a short, stocky blond with hazel eyes and a wicked smile. Kiegan towered over his lover. Afterwards Didion had laughed out loud, in private, at their differences in size. 

Not long after that, he had met Sebastian Sanders, cousin to one of the men Didion had targeted to use in his mission in Atlanta. 

And all hell broke loose. 

Tired of thinking about it, Didion's attention returned to Kiegan. His friend had been there, at his side, in Alaska, when a renegade doctor had tried to kill him. Some days, he wished that the doctor had succeeded. Once the treatment had finally taken hold of his body, the process had altered itself. Now his senses were too strong, too sharp, and Didion had to focus much harder than the others just to maintain control. The fluorescent lights hurt his eyes as they ran down the hall, and the sounds of their boots on the linoleum echoed in his ears. Shaking his head, he remembered that he had left his sunglasses in Dr. Coles' office. There was no time to turn back. Both soldiers skidded into the security station in time for Didion's eyes to fall on the black and white video monitors. 

Tanks. 

One at each gate. 

And poised behind them, ready to rush into the compound, armored personnel carriers. None of the Rangers needed their hypersensitive ears to recognize the throbbing pizzicato of helicopter blades. 

The compound's phone rang and Didion snatched it up before the first ring ended. "Captain Sachs." 

"Captain, this is Colonel Benjamin Halleck of the U.S. Army. I am ordering you to stand down." "Well you've accomplished step one, Colonel. Step two would be me explaining to you that I can't stand down, so why don't we move on to step three and start the negotiations?" 

"Negative, Captain. There will be no negotiations." 

"So the lives of Congressman Kline and General Carson are expendable, too?" 

"We are prepared for that contingency. Stand down now." 

"I see. Well, listen to this warning and listen carefully. After we took the Austin compound, we downloaded all of the files concerning the Project, including the names of all the soldiers who were killed, all the civilians we were ordered to assassinate, all the foreign dignitaries and even the names of innocent children. And all the memos. Especially the one from the President. And we took all of that information along with the chemical formulas for producing both forms of hypersensitivity and we have stored them in twenty-seven web servers hidden throughout the United States. Each server is linked to the other, and if one falls, the other twenty-six start transmitting these documents via email. Most servers are directed towards a major newspaper, magazine or news media organization. The others are ready to start transmitting to embassies for Russia, Britain, Cuba, Iraq, China, Japan, North Korean, Israel and India. The minute the first soldier steps onto this compound, I send the order to start pumping that information to the entire world and the walls come tumbling down, Colonel. Are you prepared to be known as the man who pulled the trigger that destroyed the United States?" 

Didion waited, easily listening to the man's heart beat spike. 

"One last thing, Colonel. You have twenty-four hours to bring a proposal to the table, or I release that information regardless. You can kill me. You can kill all these soldiers, and you can set up new operating tables and start killing more of them. But this time, you won't kill the truth." 

Didion slammed the phone down, and then he, and several other men, took a deep breath. He turned to look at Kiegan. 

"And so it begins." 

* * *

Cascade, Washington 

By the end of the day, the staff at Cascade General allowed visitors to come into Ian's intensive care unit for fifteen minute intervals. Blair limped into the room, still uncomfortable with his crutches. Jim followed quietly behind him. Standing there, Blair couldn't help but question why no one would let them stay for longer times in Ian's room. After all, the man was in a coma. It wasn't as if he was going to wear himself out talking or moving around or even staying awake too long for that matter. 

For a moment, Blair's frustration waned as he saw in detail how close to death their friend was. Ian seemed so pale and ashen against the blue sheets. The only sounds were the hiss of the respirator and the electric beeps of the heart monitor. His lips were parted by the thick wrinkled tube that ran into his mouth. Even his soft black hair, which normally lay in such a perfect wave across his forehead, was mussed and tangled. 

Blair wanted to roar. He wanted to shout and tear and throw. Ian had done nothing to these people. He was nothing to them. The only reason he was even hanging this close to death was because Blair and Collin had resisted Nic's demand. If only that demand hadn't seemed so unreal. When Nic had appeared before them with a gun in his hand, he was still just their simple visitor, full of naive smiles and courtesy. Blair wasn't too sure what had been going through Collin's mind that afternoon, but he knew that in his own mind, he was in a state of shock. It was too surreal for Nic, this man who had kissed him and even made Blair believe he had wanted to date, to just materialize with a gun and demand Collin get in the car. 

They weren't resisting. 

They were just confused. 

And because of it, Nic had shot Ian three times in the chest, then sent a bullet through Blair's thigh. 

/It's so fucking unfair!/ 

Just at that moment, Blair felt Jim's hands on his shoulders. In a pique of frustration, he rolled his shoulders to get Jim to stop touching him. He didn't want to be touched. He didn't want to be comforted. The fact that he had a sanctuary in Jim's arms shouted with unfairness, that he could seek relief while Ian lay in a coma and Collin was being held god only knew where. Blair felt like he didn't deserve it. And he wasn't used to this kind of waiting around, with nothing to do and nothing to keep his mind from thinking about the nightmares Collin was facing. Right now he wanted to break things and to paint the air blue with cursing until his throat turned hoarse. 

He only noticed that Jim had slipped out of the room when he heard the door close behind him. 

* * *

Rallingsburg, Virginia 

By six o'clock that evening, Didion was alerted to a change in activity at the gate. He and Kiegan stared at the video monitor just as the phone rang. Didion let the phone ring a few times as he studied the older gentleman in his dress uniform and heavy trenchcoat, holding a briefcase and standing ram-rod stiff in front of the iron gates. He could easily see the man's three stars and the small black cell phone held up to his ear. 

Didion picked up the phone on the fifth ring. "This is Captain Sachs," he answered. 

"Son, this is General Townsend. Open up these gates so we can talk." Watching the general's lips move on the video screen while hearing him speak on the phone was jarring. His plain rural accent sounded at odds with Sebastian's cultured lilt that Didion was accustomed to. The comparison in Didion's mind caused the Ranger to pause. After a moment's hesitation, he said, "Open the gate." 

Then all of the hypersensitive soldiers held their breath as the iron gates opened. They halfway expected the tanks and other soldiers to come streaming into the compound. 

But the general stepped inside, then kept walking down the long path towards the entrance of the clinic. None of the other soldiers moved, and the gates quickly shut them out again. 

Didion, Kiegan and three other Rangers dashed from the security rooms and towards the front of the clinic. They made it to the foyer just as the general stepped up. The five Rangers lined up in crisp formation and saluted the general sharply. 

Taken aback by their sudden display of protocol, the general eyed the men sharply with his eyebrows furrowed, but he quickly read their attempts at demonstrating their loyalty as a part of their negotiation tactics. "At ease, men," he said. Then he looked around. "Is there a place somewhere around here where we can talk?" 

"This way, sir," Didion motioned to the right towards a comfortable waiting area. 

The general shucked his coat, then sat down in a cushioned wing chair. He noticed that the other soldiers remained standing. "Sit down," he ordered. After they did so, General Townsend asked, "I take it you are Captain Sachs?" 

"Yes sir." 

"Why you?" 

"Excuse me, sir?" 

"Why are you in charge?" 

Didion thought for a moment, unsure how to reply. 

"Why are these men following you?" General Townsend asked again. 

Kiegan answered for him. "Because he found the cure, sir." 

"The cure," the general repeated, wrinkling his chin in thought. "I see. Did you find this cure on your own, son?" 

"Sir, I'm sure they briefed you on who I am," Didion said. "I own Sachs-Rochemann Pharmaceuticals. My research and design department created the cure, and they are the ones who manufactured it in bulk." 

The general only nodded. "So for that they elected you the leader?" 

"No one elected me, sir." 

"But you're still the one calling the shots." "I merely told the corps what I was doing, and that they could join me. I didn't force anyone, and I did not make myself king, sir." 

"It takes more than salesmanship to become a leader, son." 

"I understand that, sir. Could I at least offer that we have been under such an oppressive hell that the first chance to free ourselves, we took it?" 

The general sighed. He rose from his chair. The other soldiers did the same out of respect, but the general motioned with a wave of his hand for them to sit back down. He stepped towards the windows with his hands crossed behind his back. For several moments, he was silent as he stared out across the compound. Finally, he sighed again and muttered, "This is one hell of a mess." 

"We only wish to be free, sir," Didion offered in a soft voice. 

The general glanced over his shoulder at them, but he remained standing in front of the window. He nodded at Didion's words, then returned to staring through the glass. After a while, he began again, "I had never even heard of you boys until this morning. They've been briefing me on it all day while we've waited on the President to make his decision. And all this time, I couldn't stop thinking about myself and thirty years ago." He turned around to face them. "You see, I was held captive in a prison camp just inside the border to Laos. The entire time I was there, I only had one thought -- and that was to get the hell out. And then when I got out, the only thing I could think of was how the hell was I supposed to get back to base and tell the Army where this camp was located. You see, this camp was right smack dab in the middle of friendly territory. Right under our noses. And no one ever suspected." 

General Townsend began pacing again. "I was pissed as hell this morning when they told me about this clinic. All piss and vinegar. And I wish I can tell you that heads will roll, but I think we both know they won't." 

Didion felt his stomach cramp. He didn't like the way this conversation was turning. "We want to come home, sir. Only we want to stop killing civilians. And we want to stop dying." 

"You think you can make your own orders?!" the general snapped back. 

Didion swallowed hard, then something changed in his gut. A sense of fatality, as if honor had dictated the route and life simply had to shut up and follow. He could feel martyrdom closing in on him. He stood up as he spoke. "General, we have the option to resist an order that can be found unlawful. I believe that my fellow men and I have been dictated to carry out unlawful commands, and those who refused were put to death in a cruel and unusual manner. In our attempts to stand up and fight for what we believe is just and honorable, we are ready to stake our lives." 

Again, the general waved him down. "I understand, son. I feel like I've just come across a prison camp in friendly territory again. I'm sure it won't surprise you to hear that if I were in your shoes, I'd of taken the same steps you did a thousand times. But my point is that you don't jeopardize the security of the United States when you do that. Escaping out of prison is one thing. Hell, blowing up the damn prison, that's fine, too. But you don't set the nuclear weapons off on your own country." 

"I understand, sir," Didion offered. 

"Do you?" 

"But please understand that we weren't escaping from a prison camp. We were committing treason, sir, and we had to make a safety net for ourselves." 

The general sighed out loud as he looked down at his feet. Then he shook his head, "I have to admit, you sure grabbed hold of the President's balls." Then he glanced over at Didion. "I don't think I need to tell you how little the President appreciates having his already compromised balls in a vice." 

"Yes sir." 

The general returned to his chair and picked up his briefcase. The snap of the sprung latches reverberated in the small room. Clearing his throat, the general began his demands. "First, the President is offering a general pardon to you and all the men who have been affected by the genetic treatments." 

He waited for Didion's reaction. When he got none, he realized that he was not only dealing with a rebellious soldier, but he also had on his hands a corporate businessman and keen negotiator. Didion Sachs was going to remain stone-faced until the final deal was on the table. 

"Second, the families of all soldiers affected by this treatment, whether the soldier survived or is dead, will receive financial restitution. 

"Third, all soldiers currently afflicted with the cancer will receive treatment. 

"Fourth, all Rangers currently exhibiting hypersensitive skills will receive honorable discharges." 

Didion interrupted him with a curt, "Unacceptable, sir." 

General Townsend raised his eyebrows. "I beg your pardon, soldier." 

"I am not speaking for all of the men, sir, but I know that I accepted a mission, and for several years now, I have not been allowed to follow that mission." 

"That is not your decision to make." 

"Not necessarily, sir. We were created to attack and destroy a secret organization known as the Order. If we are released without attempting to finish our mission, the Order will simply kill us and our families, one by one." 

"Very well." The general glanced down at his notes. "We'll work that out later. What we are asking is this. First, you will stand down and return control of this clinic and the remote clinics to the U.S. Army as well as release your hostages. You will also turn over control of the twenty-six web servers. The Project is being turned over to my command, so I guess if you choose to continue with your military careers in this project, you will report directly to me." General Townsend set down his notes and eyed Didion for his response. "Well?" 

"To begin with, we will accept your first four points, with the option of honorable discharge being handled by each individual Ranger. However, I will also require that you return my frozen assets, especially control of Sachs-Rochemann." 

The general merely nodded. 

"Second, we are not convinced that the Project can be managed by people who have no experience fighting the Order." 

"What are you suggesting, son?" 

"We are willing to report to you, sir, or any member of the general staff, but our senior agents must be allowed some control of the field." 

"So I guess you do want to be king? Is that it, son? I'm afraid that's not acceptable." 

"We are the only ones who have fought the Order in the field. We know what we are up against and the best way to fight them. We don't want to be kings, sir, but we do want to control how and when we fight." 

"Soldiers don't get that choice, son." 

"We aren't ordinary soldiers, sir. In fact, you may not realize it, but all five of us can tell when you're lying to us. We can tell when you aren't comfortable with some of these demands. And we can also tell which of the offers you are handing to us, that you yourself don't trust." 

The general remained silent for a few seconds before adding, "And the web servers?" 

"We'll shut down all but one." 

"Unacceptable." 

"We don't trust anyone, general. The Army that we sore an oath to turned us into freaks and monsters, killed our brothers in arms and separated us from our families. Don't expect us to roll over on our bellies and start wagging our tails. We _are_ the ones in control here, and I know you realize that. Of course we aren't just going to accept any of your offers that don't meet our expectations. Now, we are more than willing to stand down. We are more than willing to release our prisoners. And perhaps, next year, if we have been able to exist in an environment of trust and respect, then of course we'll shut down the web servers. But right now, we're pissed as hell and we smell blood in the water. Now I know you've been thinking all day about your experiences in a prison camp. How long did you stay there?" 

"Two months." 

"This prison camp has been in operation for over twenty years, sir. As far as I'm concerned, you're only offering to be our new warden. I'm here to tell you that you can be in charge of this prison all you want, but that the prisoners want a say in how things run, at least for the first year." 

"Son --" 

"I'm sorry, sir. These points are not negotiable." 

The general stood again and faced the window. Eventually, he said, "You know, one of the things that brought down the Roman Empire was when the Praetorian Guard took command of themselves." 

"We'll keep that in mind, sir." 

* * *

Cascade, Washington 

Jim pushed the door to Ian's unit closed behind him as he stepped into the dimly lit hallway. He knew Blair was suffering. His thigh had to hurt, especially since his partner refused to take the pain medication offered by the doctors. Jim couldn't help but notice how the corners of Blair's dark blue eyes crunched together with each step he took, or the tight, wrinkled line that stitched his lips closed. Blair was pushing himself too hard . . . again. As if, Jim imagined, Blair's extra exertion will somehow magically heal Ian or cause Collin to materialize here in the hallway. 

/Then why is he snapping at me all the time?/ 

Closing his eyes, Jim leaned his back against the wall and crossed his arms over his chest. Blair had only just come back to him, and the wounds Jim had inflicted when Didion had toyed with them both were still too tender. It hurt him to think that Blair still refused to see Jim as a safe place to store his trust. Shaking his head, Jim forced his mind to take the more comfortable interpretation, that Blair was physically hurting from the wound and angry at the situation and that he was directing all of that rage at Jim simply because he was the one standing there. 

/Do you behave any better?/ 

He remembered all of times he had acted like a jackass for each scrape, bruise, graze and wound. After all, he had once made Blair's life hell just because he had gotten a cold. 

At the same time, he couldn't help but feel goaded by the lack of emotion he was feeling for either Ian or Collin. Yes, they were friends and yes, both were in mortal danger, but truth was, the frustrations over Blair had taken so much of Jim's emotional energy, what with the past few weeks having to rescue their relationship from his own indiscretions with FBI Special Agent Lee Whitmore. And just when he had finally won Blair back to his side, this kidnapping occurred. Would he ever get a chance to just have Blair to himself, uninterrupted? 

Jim tensed his jaw as he tried to reassure himself that he wasn't a monster for being more afraid for Blair's safety than for Ian or Collin's. During lunch, while Blair waited at the hospital, Jim had gone to the site of the abduction, but just as Blair had predicted, the rain had washed away any traces. 

The sound of the door pulled his attention away from his thoughts. Jim opened his eyes and lifted his head to see Blair limp out of Ian's room. The guide hobbled towards him, then stopped just a few steps away. 

"Hey," Blair said. 

Jim didn't respond. He only looked into Blair's soft eyes. 

"Look, man, I . . . I'm sorry." 

"You don't have to say anything, Chief." 

"I . . . I know . . . but I should. Look, I've been biting your head off all day today, and you've been taking it." 

"It doesn't matter." 

"I just . . . I don't know what I'm supposed to do--" 

"Chief --" 

"--and I feel like I should be doing something--" 

"Chief--" 

"--and I don't even know where to begin and I can't stop feeling like this is all my fault and --" 

"Whoa, Blair." Jim's hands reached out to cup his shoulders. "Enough already. This isn't your fault and there is nothing you can do." Blair turned his head away sharply. "All you can do right now is focus on you, okay?" 

"But I can't focus on me right now, Jim. Can't you see that? It just doesn't feel right." 

Jim sighed heavily, then he pulled Blair into a tight embrace, his chin resting on his lover's head. "I know, Chief, I know. This isn't over. Not by a long shot. You're alive. Ian's alive. He's not dead and he'll pull through. And these people, they need Collin, and they need him alive. If they didn't, they would have left him for dead and would have never tried to take him." His fingers traced the line of Blair's spine, touching each bump and valley of his vertebrae in an attempt to soothe him. "In case you didn't know," Jim whispered softly before kissing Blair's forehead, "I'm not going to give up until all of this is set to right." 

Blair rested his head on Jim's chest. He wanted to wrap his arms around Jim's waist, but he couldn't do that and hold his crutches at the same time. "I'm sorry I've been so mean to you. I just can't help it." 

"I know. I know. Remember that time I got the flu and gave you such hell?" "Yeah." 

"Consider it payback time." 

"Okay." 

"Hey Chief?" 

"Yeah." 

"I love you." 

Blair let his crutches drop, and they slapped against the floor simultaneously. He threaded his arms around Jim's body, taking and holding onto his frame for support. "I love you, too," he said, squeezing tightly. Smiling to himself, feeling a little more comfortable that Blair was still his, Jim nuzzled into the space between his neck and shoulder, moving through the hair until he could plant soft lips on his guide's bare skin. 

* * *

Alaskan Compound 

Inside the central lodge area, where a huge stone fireplace dominated the circular room, Sebastian Sanders sat in a low chair made of heavy, rough-hewn timbers. He stared into the flames as they licked around the logs, trying to let the pinon smell of the smoke and the sound of crackling embers soothe his heart. His mind, though . . . his mind had shut down hours ago. For days he and the others had sat apprehensively in a state of radio silence while they waited for word from Virginia. The stress had been endurable, even if Sebastian had needed to take sleeping pills each night to force his body into sleep. 

But two hours ago, he had received word of the events in Cascade. 

Just knowing that the Order had his cousin and best friend had sent him into a state of shock. He had said nothing to anyone after reading the message. 

"Bass?" 

The young man didn't hear his name being called. 

"Sebastian?" 

He felt the nudge of someone beside him. Drawing his tired eyes away from the flames, he looked up and barely recognized the soldier standing over him. "What?" 

"It's for you." 

Sebastian realized a cell phone was being thrust into his hands. He stared at it blankly for a moment before lifting it to his ear. "Hello?" 

"Bass, it's me." 

He sighed out loud, slumping back into the cushions of the chair. "I guess everything's fine if you're calling me." 

"I'm a major now. How's that for fine?" 

"A major?" 

"I didn't ask for that part, but the general said he needed me to have a higher rank than the other captains." 

"Oh." 

Didion noticed the dullness in his voice. "Bass? Bass, what's wrong?" 

"Didion, they have Collin." 

"Who has Collin?" 

"The Order." 

A long silence dominated the line. Finally, Didion groaned, "Shit." 

"What do we do?" 

"We don't have much of an espionage wing anymore," Didion said sullenly. "We killed most of them." He remained quiet for a while. "As soon as we regroup the Project, I can have men in the field to dig up some leads." 

"Oh." Sebastian closed his eyes, took a deep breath, then asked, "Didion?" 

"Yes?" 

"Can I go home now?" 

"Home?" Didion asked softly, a little nervous. "Where's home?" 

"Wherever you are." 

Didion sighed before saying gently, "I love you. Everything is safe now. Fly to Rallinsburg as soon as you can." 

* * *

Cascade, Washington  
Friday, October 30, 1998. 

Blair dropped one of his crutches on the sofa in his apartment and hobbled around the tight confines with just one. Jim closed the door, locking it behind him. Even though they had begun to repair their relationship, Blair had yet to move back into the loft. He hadn't wanted to leave his best friend in a loop with no roommate, even though Blair had wanted to "go back home." 

"I don't feel comfortable doing this," Blair said. 

Jim straightened his spine. "You what?" 

"I feel weird going through Collin's stuff." 

"Let me get this straight," Jim said as he drew one finger across his eyebrow. "That time I got kidnapped, you and Simon and Joel couldn't wait to get your hands in my stuff, but now you're feeling reservations about going through Collin's?" 

"That was different." 

"Uh-huh," Jim nodded ironically. "Different. Look, Chief, we need some leads. Something about Collin that would make them want to take him." 

"I know, I know. I just said it feels weird. That's all." He followed Jim down the hall and into Collin's bedroom. 

Once inside the room, Jim began to catalogue the scents. Cologne -- traces of both Collin's and Ian's. Nothing out of the ordinary. Sitting down on the bed, he opened the drawer to the bedside table and began to remove the objects he found there. Condoms. Lube. Then the framed photograph he had seen Collin hold the last time Jim had been in this room, when they had confronted Collin about his knowledge of Didion and Sebastian. Jim remembered that it was a photograph of Collin's ex-boyfriend, the one who had lived in Atlanta. He wondered what Ian must have thought each time one of them reached into this drawer for a condom, only to see those blue-green eyes looking back at him. 

"Do you remember who this is?" Jim asked. 

Blair eased down on the bed with a grimace. "That? That's Brian Folsom." 

"What do you know about him?" 

"I doubt he had anything to do with this." 

"Humor me." 

"He went to college with Collin and Bass . . . and Miriam. Some town in Georgia. It wasn't Atlanta. Anyway, Collin said they barely spoke to each other when they were undergrads, and then one day the two of them met in some bar in Atlanta. They were together for four years." 

"How was Didion involved again?" 

"Didion had an affair with Brian." 

"He was a cop, right?" 

"Yeah. Collin seemed to think that Didion had an affair with Brian just to break the two of them up. Right after that happened, Brian started seeing his partner on the force. I think the name was Scott. From what I gather from what Collin said, I think Scott was a sentinel, and that was why Didion targeted him. I think Scott died, but I don't think Didion actually killed him. And somewhere in all that, Didion and Bass hooked up." 

Jim shook his head. "I think I need a score card." 

Blair nudged him with his elbow. "Uhm, let's think about it, Jim." He started counting off on his fingers. "You. Tom. Me. Jack. Ian. Collin. Lee. Bass. Didion." 

"Fine." He handed the photograph to Blair before reaching into the drawer to pull out more things. "Do you think any of what happened then has any bearing on why Collin was the one they took?" 

"Who knows? I mean, if you stand back and look at all that's happened, a few months ago Didion shot both that Order assassin _and_ he shot one of his own men. Then _you_ shot at _him_. Bass claimed they were trying to protect Ian from the Project. These Order people, they probably have some idea that you're a sentinel -- I mean, if they know Didion is one then they probably suspect you, right? Didion and Bass disappear, and that just leaves the four of us -- who's the common link? And if they know about Didion in Atlanta, and I know Nic . . . Phoenix . . . knows about Collin living in Atlanta because I remember Nic at the party asking about it. If they take Collin, then they have the common link." 

"Do you think he might have something here from when they were in Atlanta?" 

"I doubt it. Collin said that most of that stuff was lost when the house burned down." 

"What house burned down?" 

Blair sighed, obviously uncomfortable with revealing something private and personal that Collin had shared with him. 

Recognizing the reticence, Jim prodded, "Come on, Chief. This could be important." 

"Collin like went off the deep end when all of this happened between Brian and Didion, and how quickly Brian took up with Scott. He . . ." Blair voice dropped to a whisper, as if that would soften the revelation. ". . . set fire to the farmhouse they lived in." 

"He committed arson?" 

"Yes, Jim, he committed arson," Blair immediately barked back, as if he had expected Jim's reaction. "He set the farmhouse on fire with himself in it." 

"So he tried to kill himself?" 

"You see, in the Hindu cultures, the rite of sati--" 

"When was Collin a Hindu?" 

"Forget it. I don't see how telling you any of this is going to help and besides, he like so made me promise not to tell anyone." 

Jim glanced down at the photograph again of the young man with the blue-green eyes and the short curls of black hair. "What was his name again?" 

"Brian Folsom." 

Jim filed that name in his memory. The next time he was back in the station, he planned to run that name through the police databases to see what he could find. 

* * *

Cascade, Washington  
Monday, November 3, 1998, four days later 

The weak sunlight passing through the lead-gray clouds still burned bright enough to sentinel eyes to wake Jim from his uncomfortable sleep. He shifted his weight from one hip to the other, feeling the sides of the vinyl hospital chair slide against the cloth of his jeans. He was really beginning to hate these nightly vigils at Ian's bedside, and it was starting to affect his work. Jim couldn't really remember a night when he had slept decently. But Blair had been staying at Ian's side when he could, leaving only to teach his classes and meet with his students before racing back to the hospital. Although Blair hadn't said anything, Jim still felt that his guide wanted him to at least keep him company while they waited for Ian to break through his coma. 

So Jim found himself, each night, settling down into the uncomfortable chair, with Blair squeezed in beside him, his good thigh pressed between Jim and the side of the chair. Thankfully, the chairs the hospital kept in the rooms were large and padded, much like a recliner, able to fold down flat with an extendable ottoman. That might have been decent for a man of Blair's stature, but Jim was much too large for it to serve as a bed. 

Still, having Blair's body lie across his like a muscled blanket made the long nights worthwhile. As he lay there, each night, staring out through the slats in the venetian blinds at the folds in the clouds made smoky by the lights of the city, Jim allowed his fingertips to trace the curves and bumps that defined Blair, that announced his physical boundaries and proved his landmarks. Blair would slowly, gingerly, with grimaces and monosyllabic complaints, drag his wounded thigh across Jim's leg, settling it into place, and Jim would brace his hand on the flank of his leg, holding it steady, so that Blair's discomfort would be minimal. 

Several days ago, the doctors had moved Ian out of intensive care, but the young man remained in an unconscious state. Monitors competed with the rhythm of Blair's heart, and the sound of the respirator hissed and popped. When they relocated Ian into general care, the staff allowed Blair to move from his nights sleeping on the sofa in the waiting room to a more private sleep in this orange vinyl recliner in Ian's room. 

All this time, they had still heard no word about Collin. After so many days, Jim was beginning to fear the worst, but he would give no voice to these thoughts, knowing how much that would upset Blair. 

This morning, the brightness of the morning sun pricked at the corners of Jim's eyes, forcing him to squint before he lifted his hand to pinch at the tear ducts, trying to ease the dry scratching. He sucked in a deep breath, his chest lifting Blair high before lowering him down again. For a brief moment, his hands roamed across Blair's back with feather-strokes, and Jim bent down to place a loving kiss on his forehead. Leaning his head back, he let his ears check on Ian, focusing on his breathing and his heart beat. 

Something seemed out of place. 

Then he heard it . . . the faint, breathy whimper. 

"Blair?" He shifted his shoulder to jostle the man asleep across his body. "Blair, come on, wake up." 

"Mmmmm." 

"Come on, Chief. Wake up." 

"Mmmm. W-what?" 

"Something's happening." 

Instantly Blair lifted his head off of Jim's chest. "What?" His eyelids drooped in half-sleep, and his long hair covered most of his face. 

"We need to check on Ian." 

Jim's words filtered through Blair's daze. "Help," he began, fumbling for position in the chair. "Help me get up." 

Jim grabbed his shoulders and lifted, and Blair quickly yelped. 

"Ow!" 

"Sorry." 

"Watch the leg!" 

"I'm sorry." 

Blair rolled his weight to the side, balancing his wounded leg until he could free himself from the tight confines of the chair, Jim assisting him as best he could until Blair stood feebly on one leg. The guide hobbled without his crutch to Ian's bedside, leaning on the metal railing. He peered down at Ian, lying in the bed with an oxygen tube threaded into his nose and his skin so pale. 

Against that soft-cream skin, thick black eyelashes fluttered. 

* * *

Around ten o'clock that morning, Ian Yoshito woke from his coma. He couldn't speak at first and remained disoriented, sliding back and forth between sleep and a cloudy, drugged state. Blair waited, holding his hand tight, while Jim made trips for him for coffee and food, which Blair would barely nibble at while Jim urged him to eat. Blair stroked the back of his friend's hand, or brushed his thick black hair from his forehead. Ian could only gasp like a stranded fish as wordless gawps popped from his throat. Blair would look up at Jim with a pleading expression, as if he could beg hard enough to make Ian well. Seeing those imploring blue eyes, Jim felt a harsh guilt eating inside him that he couldn't reach out and pull Ian into the waking world. 

Then, at six o'clock, as the sun was setting, he said his first word. "Col." 

Blair glanced up at Jim apprehensively. Jim could only shake his head. 

* * *

Cascade, Washington  
Thursday, November 19, 1998, three weeks later 

Blair's thigh had healed mostly, but he still had another two weeks before he could walk without a limp. The wound had been very clean, almost surgically precise, and he no longer needed his crutches. Even so, Jim watched him awkwardly cross the large white living room in Ian's silent condo overlooking the city. Every morning, Jim had seen Blair step out of the shower, either back at the loft or at Blair's apartment, and he took in the scars on his body -- first one pink star on his chest where Marshal Aigle had shot him, on the steps of the anthropology building \-- and now one decorating his upper leg, so close to the one Blair had taken outside the mine when both of them, with Simon, were being held down by two gunmen hungry for looted cash. 

How many scars could Blair's body take? 

Blair reached up, grabbed the edge of a heavy white curtain, and pulled it back to expose the room with light. Then he turned around and sighed. 

On the sofa, staring forward but without expression, lay Ian motionless. He wore a white, heavy terry cloth robe, but Blair could easily see the bandages that still wrapped his chest. Blair came closer, favoring his wounded leg slightly, then sat down on the edge of the sofa. "Should we change the bandages this morning?" 

Ian opened his robe and peered at his chest. He examined the cloth for a few moments, then said without much energy, "I suppose." 

"Jim, can you help me?" 

"Sure," Jim answered. He walked through Ian's bedroom and into his bathroom to find the gauze and tape. 

When he returned, Ian finally looked up and asked, "Any word?" Jim frowned as he shook his head. "Not this morning, no." 

Ian dropped his head back on the cushions and exhaled deeply. "Why won't they contact anyone?" 

Neither Jim nor Blair could answer him. Blair took the gauze and tape from Jim. "How did you sleep last night?" 

Ian only shrugged his shoulders. His black hair had grown much longer during his stay in the hospital, and it hung down over his eyes. Blair thought it made him appear even younger, like a lost, vulnerable teenager, and he reached out to brush the soft hair back. "I wish you'd let one of us stay with you. I mean, last night was your first night home." 

"I never said you couldn't." 

"But last night you said no." 

"Last night you wanted me to stay in Collin's apartment. . . . I didn't want to do that. I didn't seem appropriate." 

"Jesus, you can be as stubborn as Jim sometimes," Blair barked. "Why?" 

"I've already told you why . . . we broke up, maybe an hour before that bloody bastard took him." 

Blair peered up at Jim as the sentinel came closer. Jim asked, "I thought you two were doing well." 

Ian sighed. "Not hardly. I cared for him deeply, but I don't think he ever really got over Brian." He glanced up at Blair through the strands of hair shadowing his almond-shaped eyes. "Do you know he had a bloody photograph of him in his bedside table?" 

Jim and Blair eyed each other before Blair confessed. "Yeah." 

Ian just shrugged his shoulders. "It just wasn't working." Then he took a deep breath. "I guess we all have ghosts." 

Blair reached out to squeeze his shoulder. "Hey, you're alive, okay? And I for one feel a hell of a lot better now that you're out of that hospital." 

The doctor smiled weakly. He turned to see Jim squat down behind the sofa and cross his arms over the top of it to look eye to eye with him. "Are you sure we can't stay here with you?" 

Ian broke eye contact, and he answered softly, "I suppose." 

"Once you're on your feet, we'll get out of your hair." 

"What if Collin shows up at your apartment?" 

Blair scratched his hair. "Yeah. I've been making Jim stay there with me instead of at the loft." "We'll still have to go there," Jim offered. "Blair has all of his things there." 

Ian only nodded. Taking as deep a breath as his wounded lungs would allow, he tried to find some comfort in the break of sunlight through the gunmetal-colored clouds. 

* * *

Beaufort, South Carolina  
Thursday, November 26, 1998. Thanksgiving. One week later. 

The noon sun beat down upon the white, Queen Anne style home in the quiet residential neighborhood, painting the walls of the two-story home bleached-bone. The autumn had been entirely too mild for the southern coast, and the grass still retained its dark green color. None of the Boston ferns which hung between each thin post on the wrap-around porch had yet to brown. The glossy leaves of the magnolias and camellias as well as the towering pines would not change color with the season, and so the only reminder that autumn was giving way to winter were the vivid yellow gingko trees. 

Inside, leaning against a door frame between the kitchen and the dining room, a thin, stately middle-aged woman twisted the phone cord around her finger as she listened to the voice on the other line. "No, we haven't heard anything today," she said softly. She let go of the phone cord, and in the center of her palm she held a large gold earring which she set down on the kitchen counter. She closed her eyes, pressing the side of her head against the door frame, then ran her fingers through her short auburn hair, salted with strands of gray. 

"No, no thank you, Bernice. I appreciate the invitation, but my sister's here with me today. We're going to have Thanksgiving together." 

Just as she said that, another woman, also her age, walked past her carrying a small bowl of salad. She placed the bowl on the dining room table, then pushed away a few strands of her long, straight black hair that had pulled free of the cloisonne pin at the back of her neck. She returned to the kitchen, patting her sister's shoulder on the way through. 

"That's so sweet of you," the red-haired woman added, "but truly, I don't think I can face anyone today. Maybe tomorrow." She pushed away from the door frame. "Thank you, Bernice. I'll talk to you later." She hung the phone on the cradle, then dropped her head. 

"Georgie," her sister smiled as she stirred a small saucepan of gravy, "maybe you shouldn't even pick up the phone today." 

Marjorie MacPherson shook her head, pulling her spine straight as she reinserted the gold earring. She then reached into the cabinet for two tall glasses. "One of those calls could be important." With exaggerated movements, she pulled open the refrigerator door and filled the glasses with ice. 

Her sister, Doreen Sanders, only nodded, whispering, "Of course." 

"It's just church members calling to be nice." She slipped into the dining room and spoke louder so her sister could hear. "If I didn't answer the phone, they'd just get worried." Doreen removed a china gravy boat from the cabinet and asked, "Do you really want to mess up all these plates? I mean, paper plates and plastic bowls are just fine with me." 

"No," Marjorie answered as she came back in, wiping her hands on her quilted apron out of habit. "I want a nice Thanksgiving." 

Her sister only gave her a closed mouthed smile before she poured the giblet gravy into the bone-china boat. "Then that's what we'll have. A Thanksgiving Mama would of been proud of." 

"Mama," Marjorie mumbled to herself, staring suddenly out the kitchen window at the bright sunlight on the grass. "Yes. Well," she began, pulling herself from her memories, "this probably isn't what she had planned." She opened the oven and pulled out two small Cornish hens. "Her daughters . . . two divorcees eating fancy chicken by themselves on a Thanksgiving." 

Doreen lifted her glass of white wine and replied with a wry smile, "Better with my sister than some bum of a husband." 

Marjorie pulled off her oven mitts and reached for her own glass of wine to return the toast. Taking a sip, she then focused on placing one hen on each plate. After a moment of silence, she set her thin hands on her hips and asked, "Reenie, do you think that's what went wrong?" 

"Don't think that." 

"No, I mean it. Was it the divorces?" 

"Was it the divorces that did _what_?" Doreen asked with a sigh, knowing exactly what her sister meant. 

"You know . . . with Collin and . . . with Bass." 

"Being gay?" 

"Well, yes." 

Doreen placed her hand on Marjorie's shoulder and said, "Georgie, dear, you divorced Josh when Collin was in college." 

"Well, I know, but . . . you know . . ." 

"Let's eat before the food gets cold." Doreen grabbed two white bowls and carried them into the dining room while Marjorie brought the hens. They both sat in straight-back mahogany chairs, pulling linen napkins through their gold napkin rings. Doreen poured the tea while Marjorie bowed her head and prayed in whispered silence. 

No words passed between them as they quietly ate. Doreen wanted to say something, but she couldn't think of anything else to add to the advice she had already given. She had felt Marjorie's pain not too many months ago, when a detective from Cascade, Washington, had called to tell her that her only child, Sebastian, had been killed in an explosion. Her world had fallen apart, and for an entire week, she could barely breathe from the ache in her ribs. Then, out of the blue, a voice called. 

On that day, Doreen had fainted at first, collapsing into the stuffed chair beside the phone. 

Then the anger struck. An anger that Doreen had not entirely dispelled. She knew that Sebastian was working with the government, living with . . . that man . . . who put him in constant danger and kept him away every holiday for the past two and a half years. 

Now, though, the anger was so much more tempered. Every morning she woke up, she prayed that the Lord would come and bring to her sister the same gift that her own son had given her. 

The gift of coming back. 

On the other side of the table, Majorie MacPherson fought back all bad thoughts as she cut slices of meat away from the hen. This would be a Thanksgiving like any other Thanksgiving. Yes, there was no turkey and the dressing had been baked in a tiny meat loaf pan and the only person beside her was her older sister. But this year, her son wasn't here. It never mattered what happened in his life. He was always here. Even that terrible year when Brian Folsom had done all those awful things to him, and Collin had to spend that unfortunate time in Charter Hospital to overcome all of it, he had still come home for Thanksgiving. And for those years in Cascade, Washington, while he was working on his doctorate, he had found a way to come home without a penny to his name. Those times when he was home had meant a room full of treasure to her, because Marjorie only saw him then, during the holidays, and for years now she equated the hanging of artificial greens and the ridiculous lights as an omen that she would see and hold her son again. 

And now . . . 

The empty chair taunted her. 

The fork fell from her hand. 

He was not home. 

He was not home. He was away somewhere, god only knew where, chained or tied or being tortured or God only knew what and he wasn't home. She was alone in the house as she had been since she had divorced his father, with only her fellow church members for company and how could the Lord pay her back with this kind of torment? She had done what she was supposed to do. She had loved unconditionally and she had gone to church and she had written checks to the charities she was supposed to and yet all that meant nothing. Her son was ripped from her and now she would spend the rest of her years alone in this big house. And all that she had done wasn't enough. It wasn't enough that she had to endure this hellish waiting. Why did He have to send upon her that voice, that glass sliver of a voice that had spoken inside her one morning, and now grew louder with each passing day. 

The doubt. 

That he was already dead. 

Doreen noticed her sister's sudden stillness. "Georgie?" 

Tears filled Marjorie's eyes. 

Instantly Doreen dropped her fork and skirted around the table. "Oh, honey." 

"I . . . I . . ." 

"Don't, honey. Don't give up." 

"How can they do this to him? What? What are they doing to him? Hasn't he gone through enough? He . . . he . . . and it's Thanksgiving and they won't let him go . . . What kind of people? . . ." 

"Shhhhh," Doreen pulled her sister close as the crying started. "Don't think that. Bass said they were just holding him hostage. He said they wouldn't kill him. He'll be okay. He'll be okay." 

"Who are these people?" 

"Bass didn't say." She ran her hand over her sister's hair. "It'll be all right. He'll come home. He'll come home." 

Marjorie only cried even harder as the voice of doubt haunted her again, tearing at her emotions and filling the empty spaces with guilt. "I can't . . . I can't . . . I can't stop thinking he's dead!" she burst out finally. 

* * *

Cascade, Washington 

Standing in front of the balcony window, Blair pressed his face against the glass. A cold rain tapped against the squares, and Blair could feel it on his cheek as the chill seeped into his bones. It numbed him, this cold, and he welcomed the loss of feeling. The ceaseless patter of droplets on the window soothed him. With his eyes so close, the dots of water transformed the gray world outside into a mottled dreamworld of twisted shadows and upside-down shapes. 

Lost in his morose thoughts, he didn't hear the phone ringing. Nor did he hear Jim's deep voice as he answered it. He continued to stare out the window, watching the glassy world alter and jerk with each pelting raindrop. When he felt Jim's hand on his shoulder, he finally pulled his sight away. 

Jim stood close, the phone cupped against his shoulder, muffling it. "It's Simon," Jim whispered. "He wants to know if we want to come over to his house for Thanksgiving." 

Blair couldn't speak. He could only stare back at Jim with huge, round eyes. Even though they were dry, even though they were white, those eyes were filled with a pain so deep that Jim felt his own chest dip with the sadness. Jim traced the outline of Blair's cheek and jaw with his fingers as a sympathetic smile creased his thin lips. 

After a while, he lifted the phone to his ear and said, "I'm sorry, Simon. Not today. We're just not up to it. Thanks." 

With a flick of his thumb, Jim turned off the cordless phone. He looked down at Blair, who had shifted his gaze back to the cold rain. Jim sighed, then he pulled his lover to his chest, stroking his shoulders hard. 

"It'll be okay, Chief." 

"I wish I could believe you," Blair said. "I wish I could believe you." 

"We can't give up." 

"But it's been weeks, man, and no one ever calls. And . . . every day I don't think I can wait another day, but . . . those other days just keep coming." 

Jim held him tight, rocking him back and forth, until Blair slowly raised his hand to Jim's chest, his fingers gripping the gray sweater the sentinel wore. 

* * *

Monday, November 30, 1998, four days later Atlanta, Georgia 

When Collin MacPherson opened his bloodshot green eyes, the first thing that caught fire in his vision was the massive expanse of peach and salmon, merging with washes of teal and purple and surrounding him on all sides. All over his body, he could feel his muscles relaxing as the healing colors caused his flesh to melt with a sigh. He was surrounded by the most glorious sunrise, as if he were the center of the universe. The round, red ball slowly eased over the horizon of mist and a hint of green. Clouds, darkened by the shadow of the sun to a grayish-blue, hung before his eyes as though within reach. 

/Quiet,/ he mused. /Peace./ His heart leapt into his throat at the mystical beauty of it. Sunrises had always captured his heart, and his soul felt swept in calls of praise and hallelujahs to the sheer wonder of it -- the orange and the red of rebirth mixed with the cooling blues. He could think of no greater paradise, and streams of tears fell down his face as he broke out in a sudden, happy laugh. Slowly, his eyes gathered more focus and he began to recognize the other images before him. The flash of gold off the capitol dome. The futuristic oval of the stadium with its tiny red Olympic torch. The glossy pink granite of the modernistic Georgia-Pacific building stiff and plain like a neolithic henge. To his right, the cool cylinder of the Westin Peachtree, its black glass windows reflecting back the teal of the sky and turning before his eyes into a massive rod of gleaming silver. John Portman's One Peachtree Center, all black and angular, and the warm stone of One Ninety One Peachtree, with its neogothic bell towers topped with globes, cast in tanned pink-flesh tones by the dawn. 

Here he floated in the air above his home. /My home,/ he felt his chest welling up with happiness. /My home. Thank You,/ he called out to whatever power ruled the cosmos. /Thank You for bringing me home./ Beneath him, the downtown connector snaked, already choked with cars as they tried to navigate the sharp Grady Curve between the shadows of the skyscrapers. /Home./ His enraptured eyes captured the smaller details of rich evergreens and the remaining deciduous trees still aflame with late autumn. The joggers so tiny below. The rush of the wind. And there in the distance, the white glint of sunlight off the line of jets landing at Hartsville Airport like tiny metal hyphens hanging in the air. 

Collin realized that his arms were outstretched, and he wanted to see more of his city, his home. As though diving, he pushed himself forward, and then down to fly, down unto the city below. 

Instantly, he felt his body snatched up. His arms screamed out, aching against the sockets, with a sharp pain in the center of his palms. Still groggy, Collin looked to his hands, and he saw the rust-red centers that had been pierced. At the same instance, he recognized the strong nylon ropes tied to his wrists. Collin strained to look behind him, and he finally understood the orange girders to which he had been loosely tied. Catching his breath in fear, Collin looked down again, this time directly at his feet. His feet had been tightly tied to the beam beneath him, and now he hung out perilously over the dark granite ledge of the building. 

The horror overcame him as he peered straight down -- over 1,000 feet \-- more than 55 stories -- to the sidewalk below. Collin recognized the streets below him and the landmarks of the Midtown neighborhood. Immediately his mind put the pieces together as he realized he had been tied to the metal framework of the pyramid summit on top of the NationsBank Tower. Memories of the past weeks, of being held hostage by strangers, injected daily with drugs that both warmed and chilled his flesh, hands roaming his body, delivering horrendous pain and overwhelming joy, plucking from his mind details and stories that made no sense to him as to their importance. And now, this final torment as the terror ripped at his beating heart, being tied to this angular skyscraper. He struggled, unable to scream or even mumble, as he tried to pull himself back to the safety of the girders, away from this dangle over the sidewalk and the cold open air. 

The chords that bound his wrists to the summit were much too long, and Collin could do nothing but hang over the ledge, until the panic finally caused him to faint. 

* * *

Cascade, Washington 

Blair pulled his glasses away and massaged the bridge of his nose. Jim raised his eyes from his computer screen and observed his partner. They had only been in the station for an hour and already Blair's eyes were bothering him. Jim couldn't resist exhaling softly, feeling the sympathy pull at his lungs. Blair hadn't been sleeping much at all. Even with Jim there in the bed beside him, his mind continually worried about Collin. Still they had had no word on him. Most nights, Blair would slip away to read, hoping that his insomnia wouldn't steal sleep from Jim as well. 

Unfortunately, Jim hadn't been able to sleep either, worrying about Blair. 

He leaned over and nudged his guide. "You want me to get you some more coffee, Chief?" Blair just shook his head before carefully replacing his glasses. "No. I'm fine." Nervously, he ran his hand down the spine of his opened book before reading again. Jim eyed him for a moment longer, then focused on his morning paperwork again. Just as Jim decided on how to word a particular sentence on his report, the phone rang. He tried to type the thought as quickly as his hunt-and-peck method would let him, until finally he just groaned with defeat. Out of habit, he grabbed his pencil and notepad before answering the phone. 

"Ellison." 

The voice on the other line said, "Jim, it's Didion Sachs." 

Blair instantly noticed Jim's spine jerk hard. The muscles along the sentinel's jaw danced and he pulled in his breath angrily. 

"Jim?" Blair asked. "You okay, man?" 

Jim snapped his pencil with this thumb, and Blair felt the instinctive urge to pull away as the split wooden pieces skittered across Jim's desk.. 

On the other line, Didion added, "At least you haven't hung up on me yet." 

"Hey, Sandburg!" Looking up, Blair spotted Rafe holding up his phone. "I have a call for Ellison. Is he free?" 

"I'll take it," Blair said, quickly moving away from the sentinel before he blew. He wasn't sure what was making Jim so angry, but he knew he needed to back away, and soon. "This is Blair Sandburg. How can I help you?" 

A resonant southern accent replied, "I'm trying to reach Detective Ellison. Is he there?" 

Blair looked across the Major Crimes bullpen at Jim, unaware of who he was talking to. "He's taking a call right now, but I'm his partner. Can I help you?" 

"Well, sure. This is Officer Dale Stevens of the Atlanta Police Department. We just came across a kidnapping victim that your department reported some weeks ago." 

"Who?!" Blair almost shouted. 

He heard papers rattling on the phone before the Atlanta officer answered, "A Collin MacPherson." 

"Oh thank god! Is he all right?!" 

"He's in stable condition right now at Piedmont Hospital." 

"Oh, thank god!" Blair repeated before he sank into a nearby chair, but he didn't have much chance to relax before he heard Jim finally burst. 

"You goddamn son of a bitch, when I get my hands on you --" Officer Stevens commented to Blair, "Sounds like y'all have a pretty live one on your hands." 

Blair grabbed a pen and notebook. "Let me get your name and number and call you back." He scribbled the information as quickly as possible before hanging up. Taking a deep breath, he carefully approached his partner. Already he could see Jim's fist twisting the notepad so tightly it rendered his knuckles bloodless. 

Focusing on the voice on the other line, Jim wasn't even conscious of the other people staring at him in the bullpen. His seething anger burned as he listened to the assassin's voice. "Shut up, Ellison and that's an order. I'm in no mood to listen to your threats. We both have a situation and we can either fight each other or we can fight them. What's it going to be?" 

"It's going to be me, arresting your ass, the minute I lay my eyes on you! Got it?!" 

"Won't happen, Ellison. I have immunity." 

"You . . . you what?!" 

Didion sighed hard. "Jim, I did what I said I would do. I'm now in charge of the Project." 

"You want me to throw you a party?" 

"I want you to shut up and listen for a minute. I'm trying to tell you that Collin's been found in Atlanta, and it's not a coincidence that he's the one they abducted. Collin is the key between you and me. If they kidnapped Bass, would you have lifted a finger to save him?" 

"I'm not like you." 

"I don't buy it. If the Order nabbed Blair or Bass, then they would have only gotten one of us involved. Instead they grabbed Collin. That means they're trying to get both our attentions." 

"Why?" 

"It's obvious, Jim. We're being hunted. Not just me, but you as well . . . Do you understand what that means?" 

Jim glanced finally to his guide, standing cautiously beside him. They were being hunted, and an uncomfortable fear crept into his heart. 

Blair placed his hand on Jim's shoulder. "Jim, what is it?" 

Patting Blair's hand, Jim answered Didion's question softly, "I'm listening." 

"The Order behaves in predictable ways. It's a means of communicating with their prey. Collin was taken to make sure both of us would move, and what they did to him was to throw you and I off-guard." 

"What did they do to him?" 

"Turn on CNN. They just started reporting it." 

"What does this mean to me? Why the two of us?" 

"I'm not certain why they've targeted you and Blair. I'm definitely the one they're after. Maybe because they know you were once an Army Ranger and they suspect you are a member of the Project. I'm sorry, I don't have an answer for that." 

"So what happens now?" 

"I sent a courier to you this morning when we learned about Collin. We're in Virginia right now. Some time this afternoon, he should be arriving with full details, and he can answer any questions that you have." 

"Fine then." 

"I'll be in touch," Didion added before hanging up. 

Expelling all of his breath in one long 'shush,' Jim tossed his crumpled notepad on the desk. 

"Who was that?" Blair asked. 

"You'll never guess." 

"So why don't you give me a hint then?" 

"Didion Sachs." 

"Get out." 

Jim only gave him a slight twitch of the head. 

"What did he want?" 

"Said they had found Collin." 

"Yeah. I just took a message for you from Atlanta." Blair held up the note. "They were calling to say they had found him." 

"Didion said something about him being on CNN." 

Blair thrust the message into Jim's hands before dashing out of the bullpen, across the hall and into the breakroom. In a rush, he grabbed the back of a plastic chair, its metal legs scraping against the linoleum floor as he pulled it underneath the television set that hung from a bracket in the corner. Ignoring the complaints of other officers, he turned the channel until he found CNN and waited for the report. 

Back in the bullpen, Jim returned Officer Stevens' call. He probed for as many details as he dared, then gave the officer the department's fax number for a copy of the report. Because Collin was found across state lines, his case would now be handled by the FBI, so Jim didn't really expect to have anything timely from Atlanta. After he hung up, Jim rose slowly and walked into the breakroom to check on Blair. When he entered, the image on the television screen instantly froze his steps. 

The camera angle had been taken from a helicopter as it moved in a circle around a massive, extremely tall skyscraper. The burgundy granite building looked menacing on its own, with dark horizontal lines scored into its sides and small black glass windows, not to mention the sharp pyramid-shaped spire made of open girders and beams. But the sight of the tiny white hyphen of a figure, his feet tied tight to a beam but his arms bound loosely so that he hung precariously over the ledge, staring down, completely overwhelmed Jim with its cruelty. Even from the camera angle, Jim could tell that the height was traumatic alone. 

"Details are still sketchy," the female announcer's voice said, "but Atlanta police are now confirming that foul play is suspected in this morning's dramatic discovery of a man tied to the top of the NationsBank Tower. Police are withholding his name at this time, but they are reporting that he is in stable condition at a local area hospital." 

Blair placed both hands on his hips, dropping his eyes to the floor before pacing towards the vending machines. Suddenly, with a guttural shout, he slammed his fist into the front of the soda machine, again and again, the slapping sound of hard fist against hollow plastic echoing deep into the hallways. 

Jim pulled him away from the machine with a dry, "Come on, Chief. Folks'll want to use that today." 

Blair shrugged away from Jim's touch and stormed out of the breakroom without speaking to him. 

* * *

From his vantage point in his living room, Ian could see out through his floor-to-ceiling picture windows set like a curved wall, and his mind seemed as formless as the cloud layer that blanketed the city and Puget Sound below. There were no curls or bumps in the sky, no darker patches of graphite or lighter swaths of ivory. Just gray. The sun gave the city a soft glow, void of sharp shadows. Ian stood with his arms crossed, just below the bullet scars. The flesh and muscle had healed, and the stitches had been removed, but he still could not take a deep breath without feeling a certain discomfort. The constant straining for breath wore him out easily, and he kept his black cane nearby in case he needed it for support. Looking out towards the sound, his black eyes focused on a heavy freighter, its deck loaded with grimy, multicolored containers, as it slowly pushed through the still black water towards points east. Its vague movement comforted him somewhat, like watching barely moving fish in an aquarium. 

That morning, Blair had called him about Collin. Ian had then spent the day watching CNN's repeated coverage. The image of his lover, albeit ex, hanging over the edge of the skyscraper, horrified him. Guilt plagued him. He was certain he had wrought that, that he was responsible for drawing such harm to Collin. Part of him wanted to fly with Blair and Jim to Atlanta, but at the same time, he felt he should stay clear. He had brought enough danger to his friends. It was not difficult for Blair to talk him out of it, saying they would be in touch. 

And that bothered him, too. He had acquiesced too easily. He should be there at Collin's bedside. 

Either way, he was condemned to feel bad about himself, and there in his chest, was an emotional ache to shadow the discomfort from his bullet wounds. 

He wasn't sure how long he had stood there, staring out the windows at the ship in the distance, when he noticed the sharp rapping at his door. Ian glanced over his shoulder, his eyebrows furrowed. The knocking came again. Still, Ian didn't move. Normally, the doorman would announce visitors. 

Ian reached down for the cane that leaned against the window frame and slowly made his way across the living room to the door. He peered through the round peep-hole and saw a tall black man waiting. 

"Yes?" 

"Doctor Ian Yoshito?" the stranger asked in a deep voice. 

"Yes?" 

"My name is Captain Mark Kiegan. I was wondering if I could speak with you?" 

"Captain?" Through the peep hole, Ian could discern the pressed cut of the man's dress uniform and the bars of citations across his chest. 

"Of the U.S. Army." 

Ian opened the door, his eyebrow arched. "Project 57, I assume?" 

Kiegan eyed him calmly, his arms behind his back. "Yes." 

"It's good of you to make house calls." Ian turned his back on the officer and hobbled through the living room. He threw over his shoulder, "How bloody convenient. I won't even have to leave my house this time for you to finally kill me." 

Kiegan closed the door behind him. "I'm not here to kill you." 

"Oh, you aren't?" Ian replied dryly before returning to his spot in front of the picture windows. "Pity." 

The officer stepped closer. "I've been ordered to bring a proposition to you, Doctor." 

"What? A choice on how I want to die?" 

"Project 57 is under new management, Doctor. We are not in the business of killing civilians any longer." 

"But you are still in the process of killing innocent soldiers. Is that correct?" 

"No. Not any more. We now obtain full permission from all Rangers before any treatments begin." 

"So what brought on this small miracle?" 

"The slaves were growing tired of being blackmailed into killing people we thought were innocent. And we no longer wanted to have the threat of cancer hanging over our heads." 

"Mutiny?" Ian finally turned from his position in front of the window to stare at Kiegan incredulously. "Do you mean to tell me there was a successful coup d'etat in this country?" 

"Coups happen every day, Doctor. Just because this is a democracy doesn't mean they don't." Kiegan paced around Ian's white sofa. "They happen in the Senate. They happen in the boardrooms. They even happen in the living rooms in suburban America. One of the side effects of democracy. Everybody gets to do it." 

Ian's lip curled in a snarl. "I see you've discovered sophistry as well." 

Kiegan's eyebrows narrowed over his angry hazel eyes. "Constant mortality will do that to you. . . . Doctor." 

"What do you want?" 

"The first thing I want you to do is to drop the attitude," Kiegan threw back. "I may not have liked any of the things I've been ordered to do since you doctors got a hold of me, but at least I don't cloak myself in self-righteousness. People like you created us. And somewhere along the line, you conveniently forgot your oath to first do no harm. So can the act. You will never be a saint." 

Ian paled at his words before turning back to stare out the window. After a moment of silence, he asked again, this time in an exhausted, husky voice, "What do you want?" 

Kiegan came closer. "We have taken control of all of the clinics where Project 57 treated Army Rangers. And since that time, we've . . . lost some of our doctors." 

"You _lost_ them?" 

"Officially, yes." 

Ian swallowed hard but he didn't reply. 

"I'm here to offer you a position with the new project. Project 57 is over. Project 225 has taken it's place. Are you interested?" 

"You can't be serious!" Ian almost laughed. 

"I'm very serious." 

"I would never step back inside one of those clinics." 

"Not even to redeem yourself?" Kiegan asked. 

"I don't need your bloody redemption!" 

"Don't worry," Kiegan growled. "You'll never get it from me. I tolerate you monsters, but that's all." Ian watched the black man's fingers curl into a fist. "But maybe you should ask yourself if you are the one who needs to forgive himself. At least, I think you should." 

Ian cast his eyes away. 

Without waiting for a response, Kiegan added, "I've been ordered to give you this option. To return to working in the Austin, Texas clinic. We are in need of doctors who are familiar with the treatments, and at the same time, have no loyalty to the former administration. Major Sachs seems to think you qualify for that." 

Ian only nodded. 

"Fine." Kiegan turned and headed towards the door. "I'll give you until today to think about it. I'll be back at nine o'clock tonight with a plane ticket in your name, in case you want to take the offer." 

* * *

[Continued in part two](huntsmanwhat_a.html).

Link to text version of part two:  
http://www.squidge.org/archive/cgi-bin/convert.cgi?filename=1_2000_drama/huntsmanwhat_a.html 


	2. Chapter 2

This story has been split into 4 pages.

## Huntsman, What Quarry?, Part II

by Kadru

Author's webpage: <http://www.mindspring.com/~kadru/index.html>

* * *

Huntsman, What Quarry? Part II - Page Two 

Both Blair and Jim remained anxious that day, awaiting this mysterious courier that Didion had warned them about. Jim could barely focus on his paperwork, and Blair kept having to step out into the hallway after Rafe had complained to him about pacing around the desks. Neither wanted to leave for lunch, and by two o'clock, their stomachs were cramping with hunger. Jim dashed out to the hot dog stand across the street, but when he returned, Blair found it difficult to eat. Just sitting in the chair, he rocked back and forth. 

Blair had at least been able to call the hospital for a complete report on Collin's health. His best friend was asleep, still dazed from the drugs and unable to speak. Looking into his open hands, Blair couldn't help but rub one of his thumbs in the center of his palm, thinking about that one detail of his pierced hands. The act seemed too cruel, too laden with significance, to be just a simple happening. 

They both forced down their hot dogs and continued to wait. 

Finally, at four o'clock, they glanced up to see a tall black man, in his late thirties, stride into the bullpen. He wore a drab green army dress uniform and carried a brown leather briefcase. He stood taller than Jim, and his chest bulged with muscle. Dark brown eyes scanned the bullpen, judging everyone. Without speaking to anyone, he navigated the tight spaces between the many desks and walked straight into Captain Banks' office, shutting the door behind him. 

Jim and Blair looked at each other for a brief second before standing up and moving closer to Simon's door. Just outside it, Blair motioned several times with his hands for Jim to open the door, or at least knock, while Jim waved him to be patient so he could eavesdrop. 

He didn't have any time. The door flew open, and both Jim and Blair reared back from surprise. Simon stood there, his face shaking with anger at the presumption of this stranger. "You!" he barked before regaining some composure. His next words came out snide and patronizing. "Looks like your little messenger friend finally showed up." 

Carefully, the sentinel and guide slipped into the office. Simon slammed the door behind them, causing Blair to jump suddenly. 

The black army officer stood tall, looking down at Jim. "Detective Ellison?" 

"That's right," Jim threw back, clearly unintimidated. 

Not taking the bait, the officer glanced over at Blair. "And you must be Blair Sandburg." He crossed his arms over his chest. "I always thought you'd be taller." 

Blair narrowed his eyes and replied, "You just keep thinking that, all right?" 

"Get to the point, Captain," Simon Banks shot back as he sat down behind his desk. 

"My name is Captain Mark Kiegan of the U.S. Army Rangers." 

"Project 57?" Jim said with a cocked eyebrow. 

"Project 57 is no more. We've been reorganized. Now we're classified as Project 225." 

"New name. Same bad guys," Jim threw back at him. 

"Bad guys, huh?" Something suppressed seemed to spark in the man. "Detective, you don't have to like me. To be quite frank, I don't like you, either. I'm here to carry out my orders and I'll be the first to admit that I'm doing this against my own better judgment." 

"You don't like me, huh? Well, let me tell you what I think of your little project --" 

"Jim," Simon growled. "Don't go there. Let this man do his job and then let him get out of _my_ office." 

Jim turned away, scratching the back of his head as he frowned. 

Undaunted, Kiegan dropped his briefcase on Simon's desk, then opened it. "Here are your badges," he said, handing one to Jim and another to Blair. 

"Our what?" Jim asked him as he snatched the slim black leather packet from Kiegan's hands. He opened it, and his eyes widened. "This has my picture on it!" 

"We downloaded it from the Cascade Police database. It's the same one on your badge." 

Blair compared the observer's badge he wore around his neck against the one Kiegan had just handed to him. "Wait a minute," the academic asked. "What is this? It says here that we're part of the U.S. Army." 

"That's correct. You've been given limited clearance as a member of Project 225." 

"To do what?" Blair asked. 

"Forget the what," Jim interrupted, tossing the badge into Kiegan's briefcase. "You can go back and tell Didion Sachs that we aren't about to join this little charade." 

"Look, detective," Kiegan shot back, "make no bones about it with me. I don't like this. If I had the choice, I'd veto it. Personally, I don't like the thought of someone like you being involved, regardless of how much you're connected to us. Our men have gone through hell and the last thing we need is some high-and-mighty saint putting the rest of us down. 'New name. Same bad guys.' Kiss my ass, man! As far as I'm concerned, you're nothing but a cop who got lucky with his genes while the rest of us had to go through a hell you'll never even begin to imagine. I don't need your approval and I certainly don't need your judgment so you can just shove your attitude right up your ass and go back to grilling street punks for scratching graffiti on bathroom stalls." 

Simon reared up in his seat. "Now that's enough!" he shouted, his booming voice echoing off the tight walls. "This is still my office and my precinct and I won't have you waltzing in here like you own the place." 

Not answering Simon, Kiegan reached back into his briefcase, picked up the badge and held it out to Jim. 

The sentinel refused to take it. Rolling his eyes, Simon stood up and snatched the badge from Kiegan to read it. After a moment, he said, "Says here that you're back to being a captain in the U.S. Army." 

"I don't remember there being a draft." 

"It's not a draft, detective. It's an _invitation_." 

"Then I can decline it." 

"My suggestion to you is that you do. You have no idea what we're up against--" 

Blair broke in. "Oh, I beg to differ. We like so know what's going on." 

"Oh really?" Kiegan asked. "So you know how to fight off an assassin who can shut off his mind and turn his body into a weapon?" 

"No, we don't," Jim answered for him, "and that's why we're not getting involved." 

"Don't mistake what's going on, detective. I don't want you getting involved because I don't want you hurting the other Rangers." 

"Hurting them?" 

"You heard me . . . hurting them. I've already heard stories about you and what you think of us and I don't care for it. I personally don't give a damn if the Order comes into town and slices your little friend here --" he pointed to Blair "-- into a million little pieces. But Didion seems to think you can help, so as far as I'm concerned, I'm just following orders. And I guess if it were me, I'd want to fight to protect my back-up." He took a deep breath. "So you can either sit here in Cascade on your high and mighty horse and wait until they take out your partner, or you can meet Sachs in Atlanta. My orders, as much as I hate them, are to convince you to do that." 

"What's this about Atlanta?" 

Kiegan reached into his briefcase again and pulled out two red, white and blue Delta Airlines envelopes. "Here are your tickets. Your flight leaves tomorrow morning at 0430 hours." 

* * *

After Kiegan's visit to the station, neither Blair nor Jim spoke much to each other except for the prerequisite politenesses of "excuse me" and "thanks." They both seemed to be moving in a state of shock, like refugees after a brutal bombing. Simon could only shrug his shoulders when Jim tried to look for an excuse to avoid Atlanta, but the Project had explored every detail and Detective Ellison had been officially transferred back into the command of the U.S. Army. Simon really couldn't get involved. To his credit, Jim did not explode the way Simon expected -- Simon knew he wouldn't have been so magnanimous himself. The Project had simply strolled in and treated his best detective, and his closest friend, like a piece of meat to be traded. Once Jim realized the inevitable, his jaw clenched permanently and the stoic blanket of silence fell over him. 

At the end of the day, Simon came over to Jim's desk and offered him a handshake as a goodbye gesture. Jim was already standing, gathering up his coat. The two men stared at each other for a moment, their eyes revealing emotions that neither could really give voice too -- the anger, the resentment, the embarrassment at being so manhandled and offended. Before Jim could really react, Simon pulled him into a tight hug, patting him on the back in a masculine fashion. "Good luck, buddy," Simon whispered. 

"Luck won't have anything to do with it, sir," Jim answered. 

"Good man." 

"Hey," Jim interjected, "I _will_ be back." 

"I'm counting on it," Simon replied before shoving the butt of his cigar back into his mouth. 

Jim and Blair walked out of the bullpen, looking over their shoulders for the last time. Neither really said anything, but they both felt an odd premonition that something bad was about to enter their lives. Almost at the point of exploding, Jim turned quickly, puffing out all of his breath at once, then stormed towards the elevators. Blair remained at the doorway to Major Crimes and watched his partner. Throughout the day, he knew Jim was bothered by the day's developments, but at that moment, he clearly understood Jim's anger. 

They stopped first at Blair and Collin's apartment. Jim waited in front of the picture window with his arms crossed, staring at the gray world that represented his tribe. Blair rummaged around the apartment, packing two sets of bags -- one for his clothes and a second for Collin's. He found he spent more time in Collin's room, wanting to make sure that his best friend had clothes that he liked, or a book he might want, or some memento. Blair could only imagine what Collin's state of mind could be, and the more he thought on his friend, the more eager he was for tomorrow's flight. 

He carried both bags down the hallway and threw them by the door. When he did, he realized that Jim had never moved from the window. Blair took a deep breath, reading his lover in an instant. He approached, then placed his hand on Jim's shoulder. "Hey." 

Jim's statue-stance broke. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other and grunted. 

"You doing okay?" 

Again, Jim didn't answer. 

"What are you thinking?" 

Jim turned angrily and began to pace. "I don't like it." 

"What don't you like about it?" Blair knew the answer, or at least, he could guess. Still, he thought it would do Jim more good to verbalize it. 

"These people tried to kill you, Blair." 

"They used me for a distraction. They didn't want to murder me." 

"And you see a difference?" 

"I felt used, Jim. I felt betrayed. Still," he took a deep breath before continuing, "I know you don't want to hear this, but in a way, I understand why it happened." 

Jim shook his head. "I don't understand you." He started to walk away. 

"Talk to me, Jim. What don't you understand?" 

Jim turned on him, the rage he had been bottling up all afternoon suddenly rushing out at Blair. "Who do you trust? Who don't you trust? Your friend dies with a Quechen arrow in her back and you pass judgment on Incacha and his men, but Bass sticks a needle in your stomach and you're fine with it?" 

"Well that was unfair!" Blair snapped before he caught his temper in check, his hands raised in the air and his eyes closed as he held his breath. Once he was calm, he said evenly, "Janet Myers' death was different. She was an innocent victim who--" 

"And you weren't a victim?!" 

Blair took another deep breath before responding. "I am not a victim." Jim rolled his eyes and turned his back on his guide, pacing around the apartment. "You . . . you _want_ to go to Atlanta, don't you?" 

"Yes, Jim, I do. Collin is there. He's in a hospital. If I could get there tonight, I would." 

This time Jim took a deep breath before nodding his head. "All right." 

But Blair could tell that Jim was still very troubled. "I guess we'll be meeting Didion and Bass when we get there." 

Those words were enough to start Jim pacing again. 

"What are you going to do when you see them?" 

"I know what I want to do," Jim snapped. 

"And?" Blair prompted. 

"I want to arrest the son of a bitch. He shot two people, Blair, right in front of all of us, and now he's just going to walk." 

"Now wait, Jim. It's my understanding that he was under orders." 

Jim threw up his hands in exasperation as his pacing continued. 

"No, I mean it. Didn't you work Covert Ops? Weren't you given orders to kill?" 

"Why are you defending them?" 

"I'm not defending them." 

"Yes you are." 

Blair's shoulder's sagged. "I don't think I'm defending them." 

"Then what's going on here? What are _you_ going to do when you see them tomorrow?" 

Blair pursed his lips, shrugging his shoulders. 

Jim didn't give him a chance to answer further. "You aren't bothered about seeing them, are you?" 

"Well . . ." 

"Why?" 

"I don't know, Jim, but I'm not. Do I trust them? I don't know. Do I believe they don't really mean us harm? In a way, I do." 

"Why, Blair? Why?" 

Blair sighed out loud. He rested his hands on his hips and stared at the carpet for a moment. 

"Why, Blair?" Jim asked again. 

"I don't know if I ever really talked to you about this." 

A nervous chill slid across Jim's skin. He eyed Blair apprehensively as he waited for the words to come out. 

"When you and I were . . . not together, Bass and I . . ." 

Jim closed his eyes, swallowing hard. The last thing he wanted to deal with were the memories of Blair's own indiscretions. 

Blair noticed the response and he added quickly, "It's not what you think. Bass and I experimented with a shamanic trance state. I thought it would help me understand what I was supposed to do . . . with you." 

Jim waited a moment for Blair to continue, and when he didn't, he prompted, "And?" 

"I think we were messing around with things we shouldn't have. After it was over, the next morning, it was like we were . . . connected." 

"You're trying to tell me you can read his mind?" 

"No, I can't read his mind, but it's like . . . I don't know how to describe it . . . it's like I can trust him, now." 

"So you burn incense with the son of a bitch and now everything's okay?" 

"I knew I shouldn't have told you this." Blair moved around him to pick up the luggage at the door. 

"Help me understand what's going on here. You've done this shaman stuff with me. Why aren't we connected?" 

Blair eyed him hard. "Are you trying to tell me we aren't?" 

Jim froze, suddenly aware that he had misspoken. 

"I can't explain what happened, Jim. All I can think is that on a subconscious level, we know how to read each other. It's more innate. It's like I know what his emotions are. When everything was happening, I could tell that he was upset about something, but I didn't know what it was, and that made me upset. Now, I don't know . . . it's like I can tell something's different." Blair reached out, placing his hand at the bend of Jim's arm. He squeezed the muscle for emphasis. "I don't know what I think about tomorrow. No, I don't really trust these two, but I'm okay with seeing them. And to be honest, I really don't care. I'm just thinking about Collin right now." 

At that moment, Jim had only one thought, as he smelled Blair close to him, as he heard the heart beating in his chest. He pulled his lover into his arms, tugging him to his chest. They held each other for a few minutes before Jim finally said, "We have to get up really early tomorrow." 

Blair pulled away. "Yeah. I want to call Ian before we leave, too." 

* * *

Tuesday, December 1, 1998  
Atlanta, Georgia 

Jim and Blair had boarded their flight at 4:30 a.m. Now, almost 8 o'clock, their plane circled Atlanta behind the countless other flights for Hartsville Airport for over twenty minutes. Both Blair and Jim hated the constant rise and fall of the plane as it remained in a holding pattern, groaning each time the pilot came on the intercom to announce yet another delay before landing. The woman sitting beside Jim noticed how tense he had become and she leaned over to whisper, "I hate flying into Atlanta. Flying out is fine. They'll get you off the ground as fast as they can. It's the landing part. I've never come back home when I'm not sitting in this damn plane waiting for it to just get on the ground." She shrugged her shoulders. "Well, at least it's winter. In the summer, they turn the damn air conditioning off while you're stuck on the tarmac." 

Jim could only roll his eyes. 

Finally, the time came when the pilot announced to the stewardesses to prepare for landing, and the two men breathed a sigh of relief. 

Only to remain in the plane for another fifteen minutes as it sat parked on the tarmac, waiting for a gate to open. 

At last, Blair shuffled along behind the other passengers up the causeway from the plane to the airport concourse. Jim followed him, hefting his heavy carry-all and envying Blair's worn back-pack slung over the guide's shoulder. They emerged from the tight passageway and into a concourse crowded with after-Thanksgiving Day travelers. For a moment, both of them scanned the countless faces, the occasional person holding a white placard with black letters for the strangers they were to meet. All around, airport employees hung plastic swags of evergreen limbs pre-decorated with gold ornaments and giant, plastic wrapped candies. When after a while neither of them had spotted Didion or Sebastian, Blair nudged Jim and said, "I'm gonna hit the restroom." 

"Chief, why didn't you go on the plane?" 

"Because we were like strapped to our seats for an hour, maybe?" 

"Fine," Jim grumbled. "I'll wait for you over there." 

As Jim watched his guide slip away towards the restroom, he spotted the vending area. He strolled closer to the machines to buy a bottle of water, then growled at the price. "$2 for water my ass." Still grumbling, he waited for the plastic bottle to tumble out of the machine, and when he bent down to pick it up, he heard a familiar voice. "Hello, Jim." 

He cautiously straightened his spine to see Sebastian Sanders standing beside him. The last remaining traces of his dyed-blond hair gave him an oddly mature salt-and-pepper affect that Jim had to admit made him more attractive. If only he didn't feel the urge to smash his fist into that handsome face. 

"Bass," he muttered before breaking the seal on the bottle and taking a guzzle. 

"You look good," Sebastian offered. He remained stock-still, his hands stuffed into the pockets of his green suede trench-coat. 

"No thanks to you. Speaking of the devil, where's Didion?" 

"He's with Blair." 

Instantly Jim reacted and his body pulsed to dart towards the restroom when Sebastian forcefully held him back with both hands on Jim's chest. "Calm down, Jim, calm down. He's just watching over him to make sure nothing happens." 

"I think Blair can go to the bathroom without your help," Jim snapped. 

"I'm sure he can, Jim. That's not the point. We saw y'all split up and Didion went to make sure nothing happened to Blair and he sent me to speak to you. That's all. Nothing's going to happen to Blair. But . . ." Jim felt drawn to listen to Sebastian's pregnant pause. "For the next few weeks, all of us are in some serious fucking danger. I can't emphasize that enough. These people have come close to killing me several times while I've been with Didion and now they've targeted y'all as well. If we even once drop our guard, one or all of us are dead. Do you understand me?" 

"Got it," he threw back with a snarl. 

"And one other thing. We found something else out about hypersensitives." 

Jim waited for his explanation without comment. 

"The glands that you have . . . and Didion has now . . . they put off a pheromone. We think it's a natural defense for sentinels. It's a way to mark your territory. We didn't know this before and it's been giving us some difficulty with all the Rangers coming on line at the same time. So I want you to be aware of this. You'll feel even more possessive and protective of Blair when another sentinel is in your territory and you may not realize that some of your actions are irrational. So think twice about everything you say or do, because you and Didion are going to feel the need to fight for dominance and I'm afraid Blair and I are going to be the ones stuck in the middle." 

"I don't need pheromones for that." 

Sebastian placed his hand on Jim's arm. "Look, Jim. I know you want to take both our heads off. I wouldn't blame you." Jim forced him to release his arm. "But for the first time in years, Didion and I . . . we can make real choices about how we deal with other people. Before you take us out and shoot us, give us a chance to prove ourselves. It would mean a lot to me . . . and I know Didion won't admit it because he's as proud and stubborn as you are, but it would mean a lot to him, too. Please, Jim . . . just a chance." 

"I gave you a chance once before and you nearly killed Blair. Do you think I'm going to risk that again?" 

"The last time we met, Jim, we were under different circumstances, and under a threat of death ourselves, to behave the way we did. I'm asking you, yes, for a second chance, as difficult as that sounds." 

* * *

Blair stepped away from the urinals, adjusting his back-pack before stopping by the row of sinks to wash his hands. He wiped his wet hands with the kraft-brown paper towels, then turned to exit the restroom. As he did, he bumped into a tall, muscular man wearing a black trench coat and sunglasses. "Excuse me," he said, at first not recognizing him with his glasses before the memory instantly triggered in his brain. "Didion!" he gasped as he fell back against the carpeted wall of the restroom's foyer. 

"Blair." Then Didion held up his hand. "Relax. I'm not going to hurt you." 

"Yeah, right." Blair said with a huff as he moved around Didion. "I wasn't scared." 

"Your heart's beating a mile a minute." 

Blair shoved Didion hard and said, "Wouldn't yours?" 

"Listen, Blair," Didion said with a threatening growl, "your trip here is not a vacation. The four of us are being hunted and we're on the hunt ourselves. You don't leave Jim's side. Do you hear me?" 

"I don't need Jim to pull up my pants when I'm done. And I can take care of myself." 

"Blair, as easy as it was for me to come up to you, an Order assassin can do the same and you'd be dead. Don't forget that. Now, Jim's over there waiting with Bass." 

Without another word, Blair stormed away from Didion and rejoined Jim. And although he knew Jim was relieved to see him, the only thing Blair noticed was the intense hatred in Jim's blue eyes as Didion came closer. 

"Ellison," Didion said calmly as he held out his hand. 

Ignoring it, Jim tipped up his water bottle for a calm swallow before he pointed to his own eyes and said, "What's with the shades? You some kind of celebrity now or something?" 

"There was an . . . accident during my treatments. My senses are too strong sometimes to control them. Wearing sunglasses helps. I don't have to keep my focus up." 

Jim shrugged his shoulders. Turning to leave them both, he felt his hands clench into fists unconsciously. He knew during the flight here that this was going to be hard, holding back from beating this man into a pulp, but now it was no longer a question of if but when. 

Sebastian eased closer to Blair. He held out his hand, not sure if Blair would reject his offer just as Jim had rejected Didion's but he felt the need to try. "Blair?" he asked. 

Blair stared at him for a moment, but there was something about the honest, sincere cast to Sebastian's dark eyes -- remorseful and saddened. All the while, Blair felt a tug deep inside his psyche, a feeling he hadn't felt since before Sebastian had "died" in the explosion, like that earlier psychic bond or connection they had experienced after the trance. Blair reached out and shook his hand. "Bass." 

"I . . . I'm sorry . . . about what happened . . . in the garage." 

"I lived," Blair said, his tone of voice a little pointed. 

Very cautiously, Sebastian reached out and drew his hand down Blair's cheek and jaw, the corners of his eyes down-turned and his mouth slightly open. "Oh, Blair. It didn't hurt, did it? I mean, I adjusted the dose to make sure it wouldn't and I didn't want to do it, neither one of us did but we had to have a distraction to get away." 

Suddenly, Jim's hand descended on Sebastian's arm as he whipped him away from Blair. "You nearly stopped his heart, you son of a bitch!" Jim shouted. 

Other people in the concourse turned to watch. 

Immediately, Didion snatched at the collars of Jim's leather coat, and just as quickly, Jim reared his fist back to punch Didion when he felt Sebastian shoulder his way in between them. "Stop it! Stop it! Take deep breaths, both of you!" 

Jim threw up his hands and began to storm down the concourse. Blair dashed after him, grabbing him by the arm to get him to stop. "Jim. Jim, wait." 

The sentinel halted, taking a deep breath as his hands rubbed his temples. "I'm not handling this, Chief." 

"I know you aren't, man. You like so need to get a grip. I mean, from what I can tell, it's going to take a hell of a lot more than just the four of us to stop these people from wanting to kill us. For now, we just need to go along with all of this and see what happens. I know Didion wants these people stopped and I know he thinks we are in as much danger as they are. He could have just left us to the wolves, but he didn't, okay? So let's give this guy a fair shake and see what he does. All right?" 

"You don't really trust these jerks, do you?" 

"No, not all the way . . . but they wouldn't have any other reason to want to protect us except for some need to want to prove themselves. Now, why they feel like that, I don't know and I don't really care, to be honest. But I'm willing to accept their help if it means that you and I . . . and our families and friends," Blair emphasized, "can live in peace. Okay?" 

Jim took another deep breath, his jaw tense. 

"Okay?" 

"Fine. Just don't expect me to like it." 

"Oh, I am so with you on that. Now . . . come on." He tugged at Jim's sleeve. 

"Where are you going?" 

"Baggage claim is this way." 

"But I . . ." Jim pointed to the ceiling signs, then glanced around the rest of the concourse, confused. 

"I've been here before, Jim. We have to catch the train to reach baggage." 

"Train?" 

"Jim, we're like miles from the airport." 

"What?" 

"Okay, so I'm exaggerating." Blair moved around Jim and pushed him in the back. "I'm the guide, so do what I say. It's this way." The two of them rejoined Didion and Sebastian without saying a word to them, and in silence they moved through the steady press of people shuffling to and from the gates, down the escalators to the underground trams, then into the massive terminal. As they rode the steep escalator that extended through several floors, Sebastian turned to Blair finally and broke the awkward silence. "Have you ever been here before, Blair?" 

"I've had layovers here a few times." 

"They say when you die, you have to change planes at Hartsville." 

"How convenient," Jim shot back dryly. "Since you're already here, do you need any help?" He didn't need to look at Didion to know the Ranger was glaring at him. "Where are we going, anyway?" 

"To the penthouse," Didion answered. "That way you can throw down your gear and freshen up, if you need to." 

"I want to get back to the hospital," Sebastian answered firmly, stepping off the escalator. 

"We can go there next." 

Sebastian whirled around and stopped Didion cold. "We'll go back to the hospital." When he saw Didion begin his argument, Sebastian added, "Look, Didion. He's my cousin and my best friend. Don't forget that. Yesterday he was delirious and today he's supposed to come around. I want to be there when he does." 

"I understand that, Bass, but what about Jim and Blair?" 

Jim interrupted. "We didn't come here to see you two." 

"I want to see Collin," Blair added. 

"Fine. Then we'll go to the hospital," Didion said, admitting his defeat. 

As the four of them stepped into the enormous baggage claim area, Sebastian stopped and touched Blair on the arm. "What was your flight number?" Blair struggled with his backpack before finally finding his ticket. Sebastian read it quickly, then scanned the electronic boards on the various baggage carousels before he finally pointed. "That one. And go ahead and get your baggage claim tickets ready. You have to check them with the guards before you can leave here." 

"How's Collin?" Blair asked as they worked their way through the pressing crowd. 

"They didn't hurt him much, at least." 

"What did they do?" 

"The Order's had centuries to perfect the drugs they use on their prisoners," he began just as they stopped near the stainless steel carousel. "As the drugs break down, they are converted into a series of chemicals which have different effects, all of which make it difficult for a captive to lead anyone back to the Order. On the first day, the captive is too disoriented and sleeps mostly. Yesterday, Collin didn't even wake up once. He's supposed to wake up this morning, but I should warn you." Blair reached down and grabbed one of his bags, and when he turned back to Sebastian, the man continued, "He's going to be really irritable." 

"Collin? Irritable? This should be a sight." Blair pulled Jim's bag from the revolving carousel just as Jim reached out to help him. "I saw where he was tied to a skyscraper." 

"The NationsBank Tower," Sebastian replied as he helped them with their bags. 

"What does that mean? Why there?" 

"I don't know yet." 

"We'll go by there today," Didion said. "I want Jim and I to go over that site with a fine-toothed comb. I have a feeling the Order's going to run us through an obstacle course, based on whatever Collin told them." 

"What Collin told them?" Blair asked, leaving the search for bags to Jim. "What do you mean?" "These people interrogated Collin. That's one of the reasons they took him. And I'm sure he's told them about places and things that mean a great deal to either Bass, or to you, Blair. Things that you are afraid of. Places that make you angry or uncomfortable. Anything to keep you off-guard before they strike." 

"So why the hell are we doing this again?" 

"Because the minute either Jim or I spot an Order assassin, we kill them." He clutched Jim by the shoulder. "I mean that, Jim. Don't hesitate to kill these people." Jim shrugged his shoulder away from Didion's grasp. "We have one advantage. We can spot them from a distance and kill them. They have to enter our range to attack us. They prefer hand to hand because the odds are stacked too high in their favor. They'll attempt to get close before attacking. So keep your guard up." 

"How the hell are we supposed to know who they are?" Blair said as he threw up his hands. "I mean, Nic . . . this Phoenix guy . . . he was around us for weeks and we never knew he was an assassin. And we even had one in the station working on one of our cases, and we didn't know she was one, either. How the hell are we supposed to spot them? Are you just going to shoot everyone who comes close? Because I can tell you," Blair spun around with his hands wide, motioning to the dense crowd of holiday travelers, "you've already let your guard down." 

"Wait until we get into the car. I'll explain it then," Didion offered as Jim picked out the last of their bags. 

* * *

Didion directed them to a nearby parking garage, just outside one of the airport's exits, where he had parked his navy blue Mercedes. As he helped Jim and Blair stow their luggage in the trunk, Didion pulled out a briefcase which he carried with him to the front seat. Sebastian slipped behind the steering wheel and started the car while Jim and Blair buckled their seatbelts. Didion opened his briefcase and removed a file. "These are the weapons you'll be up against." He turned back in his seat to hand them the folder. Jim opened it, recognizing first the curved, sun-shaped throwing star they had found when Rafe and Brown had been attacked outside the alley. On the second page, a 16 inch sword, slightly curved, with a black, silk-wrapped hilt. Then, several small objects he didn't recognize. 

The car approached the exit to the garage, and Didion motioned for him to close the file as they stopped outside the attendant's window. Sebastian payed the parking fee, and they quietly eased behind a long line of cars trying to leave the airport at once. "Rush hour," Sebastian said dryly as he glanced at the digital clock on the dashboard. "How nice." 

"In hand to hand combat," Didion began, "they have a number of small weapons that they use. The daggers and the throwing stars, they prefer for distance." 

"Any handguns?" Jim asked. 

"It's rare that they use handguns. We assume the noise level and the fact that these days, they are so easy to spot and bring too much attention. They don't usually carry rifles unless they are planning a long distance attack. They are also proficient with crossbows, though. They usually specialize in intimidation rather than an overt physical confrontation." 

"Miriam was scared out of her wits," Blair added. 

"That's how they prefer their victims. Too scared to do anything." 

"How is she?" Sebastian asked, peering into the rear-view mirror to look into Blair's eyes before lurching the car forward, cutting in front of a MARTA transit bus. 

"She thinks you're dead, but other than that, I'd guess she's fine." 

"I've already called and spoken to her," Sebastian confessed. "Not long after it all happened. She knows I'm not dead." He flashed his turn signal and slipped between two cars as he merged towards the interstate. "And after meeting Cordova, she understands why Didion and I did what we did. I haven't spoken to her since Collin was hit." 

"I didn't call her about that." 

Sebastian didn't hear him. Instead, he said with some competitive glee as he cut across the gore, darting into the tight traffic of I-85, "Now, we're cooking with gas." 

Didion reached into his briefcase and pulled out a vial and handed Jim a pair of rubber gloves. "Put these on first before you open this." 

"What is it?" 

"It's the poison that the Order uses to coat the razors on their throwing stars." 

Jim remembered Henri Brown's reaction when he had been poisoned by it, and he didn't want to see the same thing happen again. He snapped the rubber gloves onto his hands, pausing to watch as Sebastian jumped lanes again and again, passing several cars at once. He waited a while, studying Sebastian's erratic driving first. The interstate turned, and Jim and Blair caught their first glance of the Atlanta skyline through a tall valley of dark pines. Jim opened the vial. 

It was at once metallic and oily, and instantly Jim knew he had smelled this scent before, when he was around Nic Bekaye and Kelly Simms. 

"Remember that smell," Didion finally said. "That will be one of your warning signs that the person near you is a member of the Order." 

"You mean smell is all I have to go on?" Jim asked, memorizing the acrid smell of poison before sealing the vial. 

"For the most part. Plus, if you look at the spine, you'll see where they keep their swords sheathed. The stars are kept on a square packet attached to their belt." 

"This is it? This is all we have? The smell of poison and whether we can get a clear view of someone's back?" "What did you expect, Ellison?" Didion shot back. "These people have been around since before the time of Michelangelo and you want them to carry a _sign_?" 

"Hey, hey, hey," Sebastian called out as he placed his hand on Didion's thigh. "Enough, okay? We all have enough baggage without being at each other's throats." 

"You dragged us all the way to Atlanta for this?" 

"Jim," Blair tried. "Stop it. What did we have to go on before?" 

Jim shook his head, his jaw clenched. 

"At least the traffic's not bad this morning," Sebastian offered as they descended the slope of a wide hill and onto the downtown connector. 

Blair gazed at the eight-lane interstate crowded with cars, then turned back to Jim with a look of disbelief. "Not _bad_?" 

With his fingertips on the steering wheel, Sebastian slammed on the brakes until the car to his left passed him. He moved into place behind that car with only a few inches between their bumpers. Jim, Didion and Blair all noticed the cars in their lane begin to brake, and they knew Sebastian wouldn't have enough space to avoid a collision. Bracing themselves, they were shocked when Sebastian accelerated and turned the wheel hard to the left, jumping across three lanes, passing several cars, before cutting right into yet another lane. 

Jim and Blair sighed with relief, but Sebastian didn't notice it. 

"Bass?" Didion asked, his hand on his lover's knee. 

"Yeah?" 

"Jim and Blair are stressed out enough. Don't scare them with your driving." 

"I'm an excellent driver." 

"I know that. But we aren't in pursuit so chill." 

"Fine. We'll ride in the HOV lane like a bunch of panty-waists." 

"Thank you." 

* * *

Seattle, Washington 

The handsome young man ran his hand absentmindedly through his blond hair, brushing it away from his face before reaching out to grab the silver tray which carried a white porcelain cup filled with cafe latte and a white bread plate holding a croissant and some fruit. Gracefully, he balanced the tray on his outspread fingertips, then he picked up the folder on the desk. Without any trouble, he was able to open the polished wooden doors, and the young man stepped into the large office. An expansive bank of windows lined two walls, and from it, he could easily see downtown Seattle spread out before him. 

In the corner, behind a massive oak desk, sat Burlington, a chestnut-haired gentleman wearing a gray Armani suit, his leather chair turned to watch the rising sun. He wore a large emerald ring, which sparkled when he straightened his tie. He held a phone to his ear with the other. "That's a pity," he said to his caller. "I had expected the senator to vote differently." 

"Your breakfast, your grace," the young man whispered as he set the tray on the desk. 

"Thank you, Perth," the other man said softly, then returned to his call. "Yes, by all means, kill the daughter, today if possible." He picked up his cafe latte, taking a sip from it. "No, I'd suggest the middle daughter. Kill her instead." He set the cup down. "You have your orders." He returned the phone to its cradle, then turned his green eyes to Perth. "Any word?" 

"Detective Ellison and Blair Sandburg have just landed in Atlanta, your grace." 

"Do you have the final interrogation report with you?" 

"Yes, your grace." He handed the report he was carrying to Burlington. 

Burlington sat back in his chair with the report. "Phoenix made a good choice on the target. Make sure he's rewarded. And get me Cali." 

"Yes, your grace." Perth turned and left the room quickly. Burlington continued to peruse the report, and a few minutes later, Perth's voice came across the intercom. "I have Cali for you, your grace." 

Burlington lifted the phone. "Cali?" 

"Yes, your grace," her voice came across the line. 

"I have your final report in front of me." 

"All four targets are in place, your grace." 

"Yes, Perth just told me. Looking over this report, it appears that Sachs is up to his neck in history in this city. He was there two years ago when he killed two centurions during the Olympics. The natural hypersensitive killed himself, but it looks like Sachs got involved in a very tangled relationship." 

"The two cousins." 

"Precisely. And now Ellison and Sandburg are there. Phoenix was right. They did come, and so did Sachs and his partner. Having them there should really keep everyone off balance." 

"What are your orders concerning Ellison and Sandburg?" 

"Use them to distract Sachs. Keep them on their toes," he sipped his latte, "and then make the second capture." 

"Yes, your grace." 

"Also, Cali, I think we should make use of this Detective Brian Folsom. He was involved in Sachs' early operation in Atlanta. Make sure he's on MacPherson's case. The Rangers will try to shut down any investigations, but I want you to use Sedan's influence to see that the case stays open. I want Folsom in Sachs' hair until the operation is complete. Considering Sachs' history and the fact that he's sabotaged Folsom, Ellison and Sandburg's personal lives, that should certainly make a nice stew for Sachs. Leak evidence to Folsom if needed to keep him interested but don't approach him directly." 

"Your grace, about Sedan." 

"Is he trying to take command of the operation?" 

"Yes, your grace." 

"I figured he would. This is a delicate situation, Cali. You're in his territory, using his resources, but this is still my operation. I'll speak with him." 

"Yes, your grace." 

"Very dramatic, leaving him on the NationsBank Tower. Was that your idea?" 

"Yes, your grace." 

"It's making national news. The public interest alone will keep it in the media's attention for a while." 

"What about Ellison?" 

Burlington grinned. "When I'm done with him, he's going to make Sachs' life a living hell, and if we're lucky, he'll be the one killing Sachs and our hands never even got dirty. This time." 

* * *

Atlanta, Georgia 

While they worked their way slowly through downtown, Blair's innate curiosity made him squirm slightly in his seat as he tried to take in as many details of the skyline. He found it surreal to see the state's small white limestone capitol building and its gleaming gold dome hunkered down beneath the feet of the much taller skyscrapers. The sunlight shone off the many windows, flashing the disk of the sun at him from one black square before moving to the next. Jim seemed unimpressed. His focus remained on the brownish-blond hair of the assassin seated in front of him. At last, Sebastian reached the West Peachtree exit and began forcing his way over to the leftmost lane, patently ignoring the blared horns of complaining drivers. Waiting finally in the exit lane, Sebastian said, "That's the building they tied Collin to." 

Blair turned to look out the right window, and he recognized the spidery gridwork of the pyramid he had seen on the news. Only he wasn't expecting the height. "Shit," he mumbled. 

"I know," Sebastian growled. "Eighth tallest building in America and those fuckers left him there." 

Both Jim and Blair watched as Didion silently placed his hand on the back of Sebastian's neck and patiently massaged him. 

Jim turned back to peer up at the building. "Looks like they didn't finish the top." 

Blair felt his stomach churn as his fear of heights took hold of him. "We . . . uhm . . . you said we were going up there today?" 

* * *

Sebastian parked the car in the parking garage behind Piedmont Hospital, and without much conversation, the four of them walked inside. All around were signs of renovation and expansion, and both Jim and Blair were instantly confused by the twists and turns. They followed behind Sebastian and Didion, into an elevator that seem strangely antique with its marble and brass features. Finally, Blair asked, "Were you here last night?" He adjusted Collin's suitcase on his shoulder. 

"Yes. For a while. But some of the family came later last night and I ducked out," Sebastian answered. "I . . . uh . . . wasn't quite prepared to deal with them yet." 

Once on the floor, Didion approached the nurses station, as he had done the night before. He flashed his badge to the nurse, then waved for the rest of them to do the same. "What's the status of Collin MacPherson?" he asked her. While she pulled up the information, Sebastian continued on to Collin's room. 

Blair caught up with him and asked, "What was the deal with the badges?" 

"Only family are being admitted to his room now. I asked for that to keep him safe." 

"Hey, Bass?" Sebastian turned when he heard Didion's voice. "Come here a sec." 

Sebastian pointed to the second doorway. "He's in room 437." He then returned to Didion at the nurses station. 

Blair noticed Jim at his side. "Come on, Chief," the sentinel said softly. "Let's go check on him." 

Just as they were about to step into the room, Jim plainly heard Sebastian's, "Thanks for the warning." 

With his eyebrows crinkled from hearing Sebastian's cryptic comment, Jim entered the room with Blair and they both stopped when they saw a stranger standing over Collin's bed. The man wore a brown suit and tie, and stood a little taller than Sebastian and Blair. Quickly, Jim dialed up his sense of smell. Although he didn't smell the bitter tang of poison, he did detect the tell-tale scent of gun oil and his hand instinctively gripped the holster of his gun. 

Blair noticed how the back of the man's hand gently stroked the side of Collin's face with the tenderness of a lover. 

When the stranger realized the two of them were in the room, he froze, a protective glare of anger flashing across his handsome face. Blair's eyes grew wide as he recognized the thick black hair and round turquoise eyes, the square jaw and well-toned body. He had seen this man before. In the picture that Collin had kept in the drawer of his bedside table. 

"Just who the hell are you?" the man asked with a sharp southern accent. 

Jim was the first to answer, moving his hand from his holster to his police badge, choosing it instead of the one Didion had sent to him. "Detective Jim Ellison, Cascade P.D." When the stranger plucked at Jim's badge and began reading it, Jim added, "And you are?" even though he had recognized him from Collin's bedside photo. 

With his dark eyebrows narrowed over his blue eyes, the man pulled out his own badge as he returned Jim's. "Detective Brian Folsom, Atlanta P.D." Jim took back his badge and returned it to his coat pocket while Brian did the same, both men staring at each other competitively. "And you?" he said to Blair. 

"Blair Sandburg." 

"What the hell's a Blair Sandburg?" 

"He's my partner," Jim replied gruffly. 

"Why are _you_ here?" Blair asked. 

"This is my case." 

"Your case?" Blair threw back at him. "Wouldn't that be like a conflict of interest?" 

Brian instantly tensed up. "What would you know about that?" 

At that moment, Sebastian entered the room. "Brian Folsom." He came closer, moving between Jim and Blair until he was face to face with the Atlanta detective. "I never thought I'd see you again." 

Brian eyed him for a moment and then replied, "Same here." 

"The only difference is that I never _wanted_ to see you again," Sebastian whispered. "And I know Collin would say the same thing." 

"A man was assaulted in my jurisdiction," Brian said stiffly, and his hand suddenly reached out to grip Sebastian by the cloth of his green turtleneck. He pounded the other man into the wall. Surprised by the sudden aggression, both Jim and Blair backed into a corner. "And something tells me you're responsible. What I wouldn't give to pound your face in." 

"Don't you touch him!" With a flurry of swirling trench coat and black cloth, Didion tore into the room, barely missing Jim in his fury to reach Brian. Neither men could speak during the rush of movement as Didion grabbed Brian by the neck and dragged him forcibly out of the hospital room and into the hallway. The detective was shorter and smaller than Didion, and the Ranger easily tossed him against the far wall before he lodged his forearm under Brian's chin. Brian reached for his gun and Didion effortlessly swiped the weapon from his grasp with a sweep of his free hand. It clattered against the floor, but Brian was undaunted. With an unimaginable rage, he grabbed at the collars of Didion's suit with both hands. 

"You have the right to remain silent," Brian began, struggling to speak with Didion's forearm against his throat. "Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law." 

A vampire's grin spread across Didion's face, made even more menacing by his dark sunglasses. With a calm that rivaled Brian's ferocity, Didion removed his badge and thrust it into Brian's face. 

"You won't be arresting me today," he whispered. 

"I don't give a damn about your secret agent bullshit," Brian spit back at him. 

Didion removed his forearm from Brian's throat, but the Atlanta detective didn't see that as an end to their struggle. With surprising strength for his smaller frame, Brian shoved Didion against the opposite wall and growled in his face, "I swore I'd take you down, you son of a bitch." 

Didion allowed himself to be manhandled, not saying a word. 

"I know you killed those two John Does during the Olympics. I know you did it." 

"That case is closed, Detective," Didion growled. 

"And Scott Addams? Is his case closed?" 

Didion answered, but there was something in his voice, a certain hint of weakness, "That . . . that was a suicide, detective," 

"Suicide? Suicide?" Brian lifted Didion free of the wall and slammed him back into it. His own voice broke with a maddening mixture of rage and grief. "He may have pulled the trigger but you put the fucking gun in his hand. You . . . you made him choose between himself and me. You put my life on the line so he'd --" Brian's voice broke but he quickly squelched the weakness, "--he'd choose his own life over my own." 

Both Jim and Blair watched from the doorway of Collin's room as Didion flinched at Brian's words. He turned his face away, unable to look Brian in the eye. 

Witnessing Didion's physical acquiescence to his words, Brian slowly released his hold on Didion's clothes and he stepped back, stunned, his face awash with horror. "You . . . you won't even deny it?" he asked with the innocence of a child. 

Didion still wouldn't look at him. 

But for the Atlanta detective, things seemed to break down inside him. For how many years had Folsom dreamed of the day when he would have Didion in his hands to beat and shatter that handsome face that had seduced him at his weakest moment? To battle and rage not only his vengeance but his own guilt? And now, to hear and see this man of his nightmares, this demon lover, standing before him, unwilling to defend himself against the charge -- it made all of Brian's pain and loss that he carried for so long suddenly . . . permanent. 

"You . . . you won't even stand up for yourself?" 

"I was following orders," Didion whispered. 

At the first hint of Didion's attempted defense, Brian felt his anger rising again, and he thrust his finger in Didion's face. "That argument didn't work for the Nazis at Nuremberg and it won't work for you now." 

Slowly, Didion removed his glasses, and his soft eyes peered into Brian's. They seemed honestly apologetic and yet, unmoving. "I . . . I know. But the fact remains. I followed orders. I didn't want to. I never did. But I had to. And . . . and I'm sorry." 

Brian gulped for breath as if he had been doused with ice water. He took another step back before collapsing into a chair. He propped his elbows on his knees and covered his face with his hands. 

Standing as a mute witness, Jim and Blair looked to each other sadly. Both of them realized how close they had come to standing where Brian and Collin were. That momentous Olympic year had passed into an ugly history for the two of them, and although Blair knew the full story, Jim did not. Jim's eyes fell on Didion, leaning against the wall, and the hunger that he knew was already strong grew even more -- the hunger to beat this man with his bare fist until that face bled. But Blair, Blair seemed to feel a deeper hurt there. The real evil wasn't Didion \-- it was the Project -- and he felt the weight of the tragedy fall on his shoulders as he stood witness over both Didion and Brian, empathetically feeling their pain. 

Their thoughts were disturbed as Sebastian stepped out of the corner and came closer to Brian. His face was a mask of non-emotion but Blair could sense a deep resentment in the way the man approached the detective. "Now," Sebastian began, his lilting southern accent oddly formal and precise. "Let's begin with you, shall we?" 

Brian peered up at him, confused. 

"I seem to remember a man back two years ago who treated my cousin, my best friend, like a _dog_." That last word slid from his lips, drawing out added syllables as he stared down at the man seated before him. "I remember having to listen to him, day after day, spill out a list of all the shitty things you had said and done to him. How you ignored him. Do you remember that day the three of us were riding in your car to Athens and I found that book in the back seat, and when I asked you what it was, you said it was Collin's birthday present and that you had _forgotten_ to give it to him?" This time Brian flinched, and Sebastian leaned in closer for the kill. "That was in August. His birthday is in May." Sebastian pulled away, but he still remained standing with his arms crossed in front of the detective. "And do you remember how I met Didion? The two of you were eating at Einstein's, on the patio, and I was walking back from the High to my loft. When I left, I told you to have Collin call me, and I saw that look in your eyes." Sebastian soft voice sounded disgusted. "I knew it. I knew then that you were screwing around behind Collin's back." His eyes narrowed even more. "And then, you fucking son of a bitch, Collin calls me to say that you were finally taking him out to one of the Olympic events and when I saw you there, with Collin on one side and _Didion_ on the other, I knew the only damn reason you went was not to do something with Collin but to do something with Didion." Suddenly Sebastian's finger hovered in front of Brian's face. "So don't you fucking dare stand judgment in front of Didion! You have no right! He might have ruined a life because he had to follow orders that he didn't like, but what prompted you to screw around behind a man who was absolutely devoted to you? Huh?" 

His hand grabbed Brian by the chin to make the detective look at him. Brian snatched at his arm, and at the sight of it, Didion rose away from the wall on which he'd been leaning. Sebastian didn't notice it, and he continued his verbal attack. "What prompted you? What made you want to hurt that man? What made you put a gun in _his_ hand?" 

Brian leapt from his chair. "Collin never tried to . . ." Then his voice trailed off. 

"He _what_?" Sebastian asked with a cock of his head. "He never tried to _kill_ himself?" His voice came back hard and angry. "Then how do you explain what he did? Setting fire to himself inside the farmhouse? Your house. The house y'all bought together? How do you think he got those burn scars on his back?" 

Brian turned pale. 

"You did that, _my friend,_ to a man who loved you. To a man you supposedly loved. So don't you DARE judge me or Didion! You have no fucking room." 

As the hallway grew quiet, the five of them realized the crowd of nurses and security personnel they had drawn. One of the guards approached and said forcefully, "I'm afraid you all will have to leave." 

With a simultaneous sigh, Didion, Sebastian and Brian pulled out their badges and displayed them to the security guard. The guard, suddenly timid, looked to one of the doctors, who rolled his eyes before saying with exasperation. "Get their badge numbers so we can file a complaint with their superiors!" 

"Yes sir," he said while collecting the badges. 

In the confusion, Brian picked up his gun and slipped quietly into Collin's room, his shoulders haggard. As Sebastian tried to follow him in, Blair stopped him. "You were like so harsh to him." "You have no idea." 

He tried to move past, but Blair stopped him again. "Man, that was two years ago." 

"So?" 

"So are you the one preaching forgiveness and how people can change?" 

Sebastian closed his eyes. "This . . . this is different." 

"How different?" 

"No one made Brian cheat on Collin. No one made him leave." 

"No one made Jim cheat on me, but I forgave him." 

Sebastian's forehead furrowed with confusion. "Do what?" 

"I said, I forgave Jim. If I can forgive Jim, then so can Collin." 

Sebastian shook his head in confusion before turning towards Collin's room. 

Didion tried to make his way into the room before Blair pushed him back. "No way, man. You are like so the last person Collin would want to see right now." 

"He has information that we need." 

Blair snapped, "Is there any human being left inside you?" 

Didion stepped back, as if slapped. He stared at Blair for a moment, his mouth open, before he nodded once, then fell into the chair in which Brian had been sitting. He rubbed his eyes before putting on his sunglasses. 

Jim stood over him. "What? You aren't going in?" 

Didion glanced up at him for a second, his mouth shut tightly. "No," he muttered with a roll of his shoulders. He then rested his head back against the fabric-covered wall. 

* * *

A throbbing headache and a scratching thirst pulled Collin from his dreamless sleep, and as he opened his eyes, he only saw fuzzy images and blocky shapes. The sharp smell of disinfectant and the dim lighting disoriented him. A slender blanket covered his body, up to his chest, and several thin pillows cushioned his head. He felt a human warmth holding his fingers tight but oddly enough, not his hand. 

Collin's eyelid's fluttered before he groaned, his slender hands reaching up to touch his forehead. He blinked several times like a dazzled child, trying to regain his bearings. His hair was unwashed and greasy. His beard had not been trimmed for a month, and curling hairs tickled his fingertips. For a moment, he examined his bandaged hands, trying to piece together memory versus dreamwork when he heard an unwelcomed voice calling his name. 

"Collin?" 

Still groggy, he rolled his head towards the right. There, with his hand nuzzling against Collin's furry jaw, stood a dark haired man whose build and frame seemed all too familiar. Collin forced his eyes to focus, and like a dream, those eyes appeared. Blue eyes flecked with green that had once twinkled in the southern sunlight on picnics in the mountains. Cheeks that had smiled beneath black sunglasses on the Georgia coast as the Atlantic salt-wind tousled his black hair. Lips that had kissed him. Lips that had silently mouthed out, "I love you" in crowded elevators. 

Instantly, Collin's chest ached and his eyes grew wet. 

For two years, he had prayed for the dreams to stop. The ones where he saw Brian . . . packing boxes . . . turning his back and walking away . . . with Collin shouting out his name into the mists. And yet, those dreams never went away. 

On this face standing over him, there was no smile. No hint of emotion. Only stone. Then the voice, so professional and studied. 

"Do you remember anything?" 

In an instant he was wide awake and brutally alert. "Oh, sweet Jesus . . . I'm in Hell." 

Brian sighed heavily, his entire lungs exhaling as his shoulders sagged. 

Collin heard the sigh and it echoed through his heart. Such frustration. Such impatience, like a judgment. And such intolerance to what Collin was feeling. The cop, the professional, the one who left because he wanted to leave and who wouldn't tolerate any of Collin's words. A bored, frustrated parent dealing with a petulant child. Collin was in Hell. He couldn't think of a more damning torture. 

Then another voice sounded, another voice Collin wasn't expecting, as Sebastian added snidely to Brian, "What, you were expecting him to be happy to see you?" 

Collin rolled his head to the right and spotted his dark-haired cousin. "Bass?" He rubbed the ache from his forehead. "Oh that settles it. I am dead." 

"You aren't dead." 

"I'm in Hell. A special kind of Sartre No-Exit like Hell. Just fucking great." 

"Collin, man, stop it," a third voice said. "You aren't dead." 

Collin lifted his head and recognized his roommate standing at the foot of the bed. "Blair? Did they get you, too?" 

"You're not dead, Collin," Brian said gruffly, and he placed his hand on Collin's shoulder. 

At his touch, Collin jerked as if burned. "Get the fuck out of here!" 

"It's not that easy, Col." 

Col. That soft-spoken one-syllable name he always said, when they were alone, huddled in each other's arms, beneath the weight of a quilt. It brought back a wave of remorse and pain that coiled in Collin's chest. "Go away," he whispered, more to himself. 

"I have a job to do. I'm not leaving." 

Anger flashed inside Collin. "It wasn't hard for you to leave me the last time. Now make a repeat performance and get the hell away from me." 

Brian sat down in a chair beside Collin's bed. 

"Do not get comfortable." 

"Collin, you were kidnapped and assaulted. And I have your case, so we have to work together." 

Two years. It had been two years since Collin had last seen him. Not even a word. Not even gossip. Two years. Now, Brian sat there, within arms reach, and the only thing he could say was for Collin to ignore what feelings he might have. No, Brian was here to do a job, which meant he wasn't here because he felt anything for Collin. As far as he was concerned, Collin was a complete stranger who ran afoul of crime and it was Brian's duty to preserve justice. 

Emotions meant nothing. Memory meant nothing. Collin felt his skin tingle all over and his voice quivered, "Trade with someone." 

"No. I won't do that." 

"Brian, I moved to the other side of the fucking continent so I would never have to run into you again. I never, ever want to see you. What in the world would even possess you to come near me after what you did to me?" 

"He has a point," Sebastian interrupted with an arched eyebrow. 

Brian first glared back at Sebastian and then tried to plead, "Collin, I know you're upset with me, and I'll be the first person to say that you have a right to be angry. But this is my job and I'm not about to look the other way. Understand?" 

Collin saw the anger and assumed it was directed at him. He tried to ignore Brian and turned to Sebastian. "Where am I?" 

"You're at Piedmont." 

"Well, at least someone had the presence of mind not to send me to Grady." He held up his hands. "What is this?" "Your hands . . ." Sebastian tried to answer him. "Your hands were . . . pierced." 

"Pierced? As in crucified?" He dropped his hands in his lap. "Oh how tacky." 

"You were the one who always said Georgia was Christ-haunted," Sebastian tried to be light-hearted. 

"I did not say that. Flannery O'Connor said that and besides--" he held up his hands again. "--what was the big deal behind this?" When no one answered him, Collin glared at Brian before groaning, "Oh, for Christ's sake. Why are you still here?" He threw his head back into the pillows. 

"What do you remember?" Brian asked. 

"I remember you sleeping with Didion." He glanced up at the ceiling as if pondering its color. "And . . . I remember you leaving me." He let out a mock gasp. "And strangely enough I then remember you sleeping with Scott like a week after we were through." At last he growled with narrowed eyes, "Do I _need_ to go on?" 

Brian closed his eyes. He took several deep breaths. Finally, he whispered, "Would you even listen to my apologies?" 

Collin's skin continued to tingle and itch as his lungs shivered within his chest. "What? Apologies? Have you learned what they are? My, that's progress. Tell me, have they taught you how to read, or does someone still have to explain to you what Dick and Jane are doing?" 

Lifting his eyes to Sebastian, then to Blair, Brian asked, "Can I have a moment alone with Collin?" 

Before either Blair or Sebastian could answer, a fourth person forced her way into the room. Everyone froze in place as they registered her presence. Her build was slim and her shoulders suddenly spread back as she noticed the others. A diamond-jeweled hand brushed back a stray lock of auburn hair before she straightened her stylish olive-green suit nervously. Blair eased out of her way, and when Collin set eyes on her, he groaned. 

His mother. 

Collin closed his eyes, "Oh, this is only getting better." 

"Well, at least you're making sense now." Collin's mother moved closer to the bed. "What's going on here? Who are all these people?" Then she noticed Brian standing at his bedside. "You? What are you doing here?" When Brian began to speak, she held up her hand in his face. "Enough. I don't want to hear it. You always were a pain in the butt anyway." 

"Well put," Collin added ironically, his eyes still closed. 

Sebastian snickered, and Collin's mother turned on him quickly. "And you!" She pointed her finger directly into his face, her southern accent thick with anger. "I should have known you had something to do with this." "But Aunt Marjorie--" 

"Don't but Aunt Marjorie me, young man. You nearly put your poor mother in the hospital with that stunt you pulled, making her think you were dead! What kind of son would do a thing like that to his own mother?" 

"There were extenuating circumstances." 

She snapped her finger. "I don't want to hear it. Are you involved in this?" 

"No, I'm not." 

She turned her question to Collin. "Is he telling the truth?" 

"Have you ever known him to?" Collin replied. 

"I ought to bend you over my knee." 

Collin heard the hospital door creak open, and he was almost afraid to see who it might be. When he saw the white fur fringe on the navy blue coat and the silver hair, the black designer handbag dangling from her crooked arm, Collin couldn't help but throw his head back on the pillows and pull the blanket over his eyes. "Oh, sweet mother of God." 

His grandmother. 

Even his mother stiffened when she saw her. "Mother MacPherson! You didn't have to come here!" 

"Don't look so surprised, Marjorie. I know you saw me in the gift shop. The least you could have done was speak to me." She held open the door and motioned, and a young man with a short brown hair and goatee slipped in, carrying a large arrangement of flowers. "Just set those down over there." Mother MacPherson opened her purse, pulled out a dollar bill, then held it out for the young man. "Thank you so much," she said. 

The young man almost laughed when he saw the single dollar bill. "That's alright," he said. "You can keep that." 

"Well, you were brought up right." She turned back to face her grandson without saying another word to the departing stranger. "And just what do you mean by I don't have to come here? I live here, don't I? Besides, he's my grandson." With her back painfully stiff and her eyes fierce like a hawk's, she measured everyone in the room instantly. "I just wish I didn't have to hear about this on the morning news like the rest of Atlanta. How embarrassing." She turned her blue eyes on Sebastian. "Well I haven't seen you since the dawn of time. Aren't you the one who nearly killed his mama by pretending to be dead?" 

Sebastian could only confess, "Yes, ma'am." 

"You ought to be ashamed of yourself. I would have hoped her side of the family --" she hooked her thumb at Marjorie without looking at her, "-- would have raised you better, but I should have known otherwise." 

Majorie's green eyes narrowed at her and she withheld a growl. 

Mother MacPherson spotted Brian in the crowd and her voice became cold. "And you. I thought you had done enough damage. Get out." 

"I'm afraid that's not possible--" Brian attempted. 

"Do I need to spell it out for you, young man?" 

Marjorie turned on him. "For once her medication is not acting up. Get out." 

It was Mother MacPherson's turn to narrow her eyes at Marjorie, but she chose not to take the bait. This time. Instead, she leaned over Collin's bed, patted him on the thigh and added, "Do I need to call the police for you?" 

"I am the police," Brian retorted, "and I have a right to be here." 

"You lost that right," Collin spoke up finally. 

Mother MacPherson leaned in closer to Brian, her blue eyes narrow and the crow's feet around her eyes making her expression even more menacing. "You . . . are a disappointment. And to think that you would be so callous as to come in here when my grandson is obviously at his most vulnerable, standing over him and forcing your presence on him without even a thought as to what he might be feeling after what you did to him . . . I can't imagine a more horrible act as that. You will leave this room. If I have to drag you out by the ear myself." Before Brian could interject, she added, "Or you'll what? Arrest me? Me, one of the richest women in Atlanta? Imagine what I'm going to say to the judge. Hell, depending on the judge, it was probably my money that put him there." 

Mother MacPherson suddenly pointed her steely eyes on Blair instead. "And just who are you?" she asked. 

"M-m-me?" 

"Am I talking to myself?" 

"I'm Blair Sandburg." 

"And how do you fit in?" 

"I'm Collin's roommate." 

"His roommate?" she blinked at him. "Is that what you call it these days?" 

"Grandmother, he is just my roommate." 

Then she asked Collin, "When did you move back to Atlanta?" 

A sudden wave of nausea struck Collin. "I . . . I haven't moved back," he managed to say. 

Mother MacPherson returned to staring Blair down. "You came all this way from Washington state?" 

"Yes ma'am." 

"Hmph." Her jaw jutted forward and her spine straightened even more. Her silver earrings sparkled in the fluorescent light. "Him, I like. He can stay. The rest of you need to clear out. It's getting too crowded in here." 

Ignoring the others, Brian noticed the beads of sweat dotting Collin's forehead, and how his green eyes suddenly turned slack underneath his wilting eyelids. Quickly, Brian collected a small curved bowl and a wash rag from off the bedside table. Four years of living intimately with Collin came back as instinct. The detective snaked his strong arm underneath Collin's shoulders and lifted him up easily. In the haze of sickness, Collin naturally fell into the old, familiar rhythms, folding in synch with Brian as his stomach bolted against his throat. 

Brian rubbed his back as Collin wretched into the bowl. "It's okay," he whispered as he handed the cloth to Collin. "I have you." 

Blair spoke up. "Didion said you would do this." 

"Didion?" Collin coughed. "Oh, great. Y'all are talking to Didion now." 

"No, I wanted to kill him," Brian muttered. "And I still might." 

"Go away, Brian." 

"Collin, I--" 

"I mean it. Go away." He coughed again. "This . . . this hurts too much." 

Brian's eyes fell shut, and he staggered back a step as Collin's soft, vulnerable words tore into his chest. Without another word, he straightened his tie, grabbed his suit coat, then retreated from the room. Sebastian watched him go, and he silently pulled away from Collin's bedside. 

Mother MacPherson flopped down into the chair where Brian had been sitting, set her purse in her lap and crossed her arms. "Now. That's much better." 

Collin didn't see him go. Instead, he rolled over onto his side to face the window and away from the others. His mother sat down on the bed beside him and ran her fingers through his hair. "Baby, are you okay?" 

"No." 

She frowned, her hand resting on his forehead. "Did they hurt you?" "I . . . I don't know." 

"What do you remember?" 

Collin remained silent, and then he whispered, "Is Blair still here?" 

Hearing his name, Blair darted to the window side of the bed and knelt down so that he could look Collin in the eyes. "I'm here, buddy. I brought you some clothes." He pointed to the suitcase in the corner. 

Collin stared at him for a moment before saying, "Tell me." 

Blair remained silent, trying to read Collin's apprehensive expression before he realized what Collin meant. "Everything's okay. Ian's alive." 

Collin's green eyes closed with some sense of peace. "Thank you." 

"Get some sleep, okay, man?" Blair ran his fingers through his hair. "Jim and I . . . we're here now. We're gonna find these people and this will never happen again." 

"Be careful, okay?" Collin added. "Just be careful." 

* * *

After retreating from Collin's hospital room, Brian Folsom stumbled towards the vinyl chairs that lined the wall in the small waiting area several doors down. He didn't notice Didion leaning against the wall with his hands stuffed into his black trench-coat pockets, staring at him through his dark glasses. Nor did he notice Sebastian following him out, only a few steps behind him. Brian collapsed into the chair and covered his face with his hands. 

"You were expecting fanfare?" Sebastian asked snidely. 

Brian slowly pulled his hands away and glared at him. A long bridge of silence followed before the detective growled, "You've got a lot of nerve." 

"No one wants you here." 

He glanced in Didion's direction. "Makes me wonder why." 

"If you want the police to follow us around, fine. But it won't be you." 

Brian noticed Jim slowly strolling down the hallway, look around, then spot the three of them in the waiting area. He could tell from the way Jim stiffened as he passed Didion that something was off between the two of them, and he waited until Jim was close enough before asking, "Where do you fit in?" 

Jim eyed Sebastian hard before he answered, "What they did to you and Collin, they tried to do to me." 

"That's not true," Sebastian started. 

Jim just cocked his head with a disgusted half-smirk, half-snarl. "Yeah, you didn't try to make me kill myself." 

Sebastian held up his hand. "Jim, this is a different issue altogether. No, I'm not going to even try to defend what happened with Scott and Didion. But when it comes to Brian and Collin, all Didion did was take advantage of a complete jerk who wanted to hurt my cousin. I'm not exactly happy that Didion got involved in all that, but I do know that if it wasn't Didion, it would have been someone else." Then Sebastian turned his angry stare at Brian. "And I really suspect there were a lot of other guys involved than just Didion." 

Brian leapt from his chair. "That's not true!" 

Just then, Blair appeared at Jim's side. He frowned at all of them and added dryly, "Jeez, people, give it a rest!" 

Turning to Jim, Folsom asked, "So did you get tangled up with Didion, too?" 

"I didn't sleep with him, if that's what you mean." 

Blair held up his hands. "Can we take a break on all the drama?" 

"Agreed," Didion answered with military professionalism. "Let's investigate the tower while the scene is still reasonably fresh and then grab something to eat." 

"I'll meet y'all there," Brian said as he rose from the chair. 

"No you won't," Didion added curtly. 

"You can't stop me." 

"You are not coming," Didion emphasized. 

Then Jim interrupted. "Yes he is." 

"This isn't open for discussion," Didion said to Jim. 

"You're right. It isn't open for discussion. Folsom is coming with us." 

"No --" Didion began. 

Jim thrust his finger in Didion's face. "Look, Sachs. There's something you _Feds_ \--" he poked Didion in the shoulder, "--need to realize and that's that the locals have a better understanding of what's going on in this area than you realize. They can get you into places that you can't get into by yourself, and faster." 

"This is not a matter for the local authorities." 

"I see," Jim began, "so even though you've gone off and rescued all _your_ men from whatever kind of bondage fantasies you like to blame your actions on, the truth is that when it comes to men like me, we're better off being kept in the dark and the best way to do that is to either screw up our personal lives or better yet, kill us." When Didion started to react, Jim just waved his hand. "Look, I don't give a damn. You need to realize that I'm not part of your _team_. I'm here to make sure that Blair and Collin and I are safe and that we're going to stay safe. The rest of this battle is your own problem and I could care less about it. That means I'm not here to follow your orders and if I decide to veto something, I'll do it. Comprende?" Jim waited for Didion's response. When all he received was an angry stare, Jim added, "Now, we're going to investigate this tower. You can come along if you like." As he turned, he said to Brian, "Let's go." 

Without another word, Brian pushed his way through Sebastian, nudging his shoulder hard as he passed. 

Blair looked at both Sebastian and Didion and asked, "Are you coming?" 

Didion shook his head in frustration, but he followed behind, glaring at the two detectives as they walked quickly ahead of him. 

* * *

The first night Ian arrived in Austin, he had to immediately retire to his hotel room. Dropping his bags, he opened his shirt in front of the dresser mirror. There, intermingled with the ornate black tattoo which criss-crossed his caramel-colored chest, were three red stars -- the remnants of Nic Bekaye's bullet wounds. With careful, experienced fingers, he traced the tight edges of the scars, examining for tell-tale bruises which might warn him of internal bleeding. The flight had been a long, exhausting one, and having to carry his luggage had worn him down. Setting his white shirt on the dresser, he then pushed off his black leather shoes with his toes and stripped away his black slacks. Standing there for a moment, he caught a glimpse of his lean body, defined by muscle but not heavy, decorated with the pointed, dagger-shaped black tattoo that started from his calves, trailed up his strong thighs, traced his hip bones to cover his chest and back before trailing down his arms to just past his elbows. A remembrance of his wild youth as a punk in London. And there, at his wrists, two long scars that he had placed there himself. And now, these three bullet points on his chest. 

"I'm sorry," he whispered to his body. "I haven't been kind to you, have I?" 

He couldn't really believe that he had accepted Kiegan's offer so quickly, but as soon as the man had left, Ian found himself automatically filing around his condominium, packing his bags, as if his soul and not his mind had made the choice to return to the Project and make restitution for his sins. He knew, as he collected items from his orderly closets and dressers, that it would probably be for the best to leave Cascade, to take away the dangers that he had ushered into Jim, Blair and Collin's life. He felt as though he finally understood the Old Testament concept of sin, that one's transgressions did not just affect the individual, but that it poisoned the whole community, and only blood sacrifice would clean the wound. 

Shaking his head, he pulled back the cold sheets of the hotel's king-sized bed and slipped under them, falling into a deep sleep almost immediately. 

The next morning, he showered and shaved in silence, then ate his breakfast alone once room service had delivered it. When the knock on the door sounded, Ian set down his newspaper and draped his white napkin over the remains of his breakfast. Not even bothering to see who was out there, Ian grabbed his black cane, then his coat before opening the door. 

"Good morning," he said to Kiegan before the assassin could even respond. 

"How was your flight?" 

"Bloody hell," Ian answered as he stalked towards the elevator. 

"We have arrangements for you at the facility." 

"The facility?" he replied with some sarcasm. "Such a lovely term." 

Kiegan chose not to embroil himself in another argument with the doctor. "It will be safer for you." 

"Safer for whom?" 

Again, Kiegan didn't reply as he stepped into the elevator before Ian. 

Neither spoke on the drive from Ian's hotel to the Project clinic. As they drove up, Ian's eyebrow arched. Unlike the military-like security of the Rallingsburg, Virginia location, this clinic seemed more like a French beaux-arts style hotel, with a curving blue slate roof, gardens and a beige-stone wall surrounding it. The guard let them through the gate without much pause, and Kiegan pulled the car up to the front of the clinic. Ian struggled to get out of the passenger seat, trying to maneuver with his cane, but he refused Kiegan's outstretched hand. 

Once through the large bronze doors, the building instantly changed from ornate mansion to sterile hospital. Ian hated that these white wall surroundings with fluorescent lights made him feel at home, but he had a job to do and at least if he was back inside the Project, he rationalized, then he would only have one set of assassins trying to kill him rather than two. Kiegan brought them both to a halt at the central desk on the second floor. He leaned over the counter and said to the nurse, "Could you please page Dr. York for me." 

Turning in place, Ian scanned the hospital as he heard the woman's voice merge both naturally and enhanced by the P.A. system to echo off the walls. Two central hallways stretched away from the central desk and elevator wells -- high ceilings and wide passageways. Young men in hospital pajamas strolled along the tile floors, none of them really interacting with the others. 

He felt something soft settle on his arm, but something about the touch made him jerk from surprise. Taking a step back, he stared down at the young woman by his side, wearing doctor's whites, with her red hair held back in a pony tail. 

"Dr. Ian Yoshito?" she asked. 

"Yes." 

She held out her hand again. "Sorry to frighten you. I'm Dr. Susan York." 

He shook her hand but he didn't return her smile. "Pleased to meet you." 

"I'm sorry that both our chief of surgeon and our hospital's administrators are in Virginia today." 

"Virginia?" he said in an ironic tone. 

"The Rallingsburg Clinic." 

"How many are in Virginia, Doctor, and how many are six feet under?" 

Nonplused, she answered him, "Four of our administrators were killed during the change of management, Dr. Yoshito. The ones in Virginia were recently promoted." 

"I see." 

"Come, let me show you around." 

"Dr. Yoshito?" Kiegan interrupted them. 

Ian only arched his eyebrow. "Thank you. That will be all." 

Undeterred, Kiegan handed Ian a business card. "That's my cell phone number. Call me when you are ready to see your townhouse." 

"Townhouse?" 

"Yes. In the back of this hospital are rows of townhouses where the physicians live." 

Ian only nodded. "Thank you." He studied the card as he followed behind Dr. York, not listening to any of her words. She stopped outside the first doorway and handed Ian a blue folder. Ian stuffed the business card in his pocket before he opened the file. He slipped inside the first patient's room with Dr. York. Once inside, he noticed that the rooms on this ward were not typical hospital rooms. Instead, they had been decorated almost like his hotel, with dressers, end tables, and a small sitting area near a large, spacious window. There were even walnut bookcases. The only detail revealing the room's hospital nature was the mechanical bed. 

"Who's there?" the patient asked. 

"Relax, Michael," Dr. York said as she rested her hand on his shoulder. "This is your new doctor." 

Ian approached the young blond soldier, reading on his files that the patient was blind. 

"My name is Doctor Ian Yoshito," he added. "Are you always this nervous?" 

"Sorry. I didn't recognize your heartbeat, or your smell," the man said from his seat near the window. "Are you one of the _good_ guys?" He said it with a tinge of irony. 

Ian sat down in the chair beside him. /My smell and heartbeat. Hmmm. I suppose I need to get accustomed to this./ 

For the rest of the morning, he went from room to room with Dr. York, introducing himself to his new patients. All of them were experienced assassins, most of them having the rank of lieutenant or captain, officers who were now dealing with one or two failing senses, or senses that they could no longer control. None of them had gone through the secondary treatment and were still receiving serum injections to prevent the cancer. After examining the first two, Ian realized that their issues were psychosomatic in nature, and that he would most likely be working with counselors to help these men. 

Without even pausing outside the door, Ian grabbed the file from the plastic bin as he waltzed into the next patient's room. He had just enough time to read the patient's name before he stood in the middle of his room. 

CAPT. JON DORSEY QUINN 

Ian's heart skipped a beat as his memory opened up and flooded his mind with images. A young Texas soldier with reddish-brown hair highlighted with strands of honey. The voice like velvet, slightly hoarse but twangy with a rural accent. The flash of his smile and his hazel-tinted green eyes. 

He froze immediately, then stared at the captain who leaned against the window. The mid-morning light cut through the glass, casting him in a yellow glow that warmed his white terry-cloth robe and caused his strawberry-blond hair to sparkle. With his arms crossed, the man glanced over at Ian. 

Then his eyes narrowed dangerously. 

"You," he whispered like a curse. 

Ian dropped his file. The pages fanned out in the air and drifted down like leaves. "Jon?" 

"I never thought I'd see your sick face again." He turned to face the doctor. "Come back to finish your work?" he shot back before turning to glare at the black captain sitting in the chair next to him. "Why didn't you tell me this asshole was working here?" 

Kiegan, confused, glanced back at Ian. "You know him?" 

Ian remained in the doorway, hands by his side. "I . . . what . . . how . . ." 

"Never thought I'd see you again," Jon growled, his strong Texas accent rich with anger. Then he waved his hands like he was batting away a fly. To Kiegan he said, "Get him the fuck out of here. What the hell were you doing bringing him in here in the first place?" 

"I take it you know him?" Kiegan asked again. 

"Know him?" He blew out a puff of air between slightly closed lips. "You could say that. Look, just get him the hell out of here." 

"But he's been asked back." 

Jon almost laughed. "Well, I don't give a shit. Get him out of here. I don't wanna be bothered with him." 

Ian wasn't sure what shocked him more. Seeing this man again, as those gauzy remembrances drifted into his mind of the rambunctious Texan soldier who seemed so full of lightness and mirth, who had flirted shamelessly with Ian in the Virginia clinic and stolen his heart so many years ago, only to die by his hand. 

Or hearing the obvious venom in his words. 

"I . . . you're dead . . . I . . . they said you . . . you were dead." 

Jon's hazel-green eyes only stared at Ian without any intimacy at all. "So does it bother you that I ain't?" He left his place against the window and came closer, his strong arms again crossed over his chest. Ian could only watch him with mesmerized eyes. This was certainly Jon, and he hadn't changed much. His hair was longer, brushed away from his face. He still had a healthy tanned glow to his skin, and where his hospital-issue pajamas opened in a vee below his neck, Ian could see the reddish-blond hair that coated his chest, a chest that he had once held close to him. But the anger -- Ian couldn't understand the anger. 

"You doctors disgust me," Jon said with a hiss. "Like roaches. You turned me into a fucking monster." Suddenly his finger shot out and pointed into Ian's face. "YOU! Not anyone else. You! I . . . I trusted you, you son-of-a-bitch and you fucking screwed me over! What, was it not bad enough that you were using me for a fucking lab rat behind my back that you had to use me like a whore?" Then he repeated to Kiegan, "I said to get him out of here." 

Ian couldn't even speak during Jon's onslaught. He slowly turned like a man who had just survived a fire, slipping into the hallway. Once outside, he took several deep breaths, unsure if he had just suffered a nightmare or not. He had just witnessed a haunting, a haunting he had suspected for years, like a mist in front of his eyes or the trace of a scent, but now that haunting attacked him full-force. But this ghost was breathing. This ghost had a file. Ian's spine straightened and he glanced over his shoulder, back into that room, to see Quinn staring out the window again. 

There was obviously a living, breathing man standing there. 

Ian returned to stand in the doorway, and his words fell clumsily from his mouth. "They told me you were dead." 

"So what? They told _me_ one morning what y'all had done to me. That I was this--" his hands spread out in the air as he shouted into the space that separated them. ". . . this thing and that I had to kill or die from that fucking cancer y'all gave me. And I did it. I killed, and I liked it, cause I could always say it was you on the other side of that gun. Yeah, they told me they'd tell everyone I was dead. I might as well have been, cause I was dead anyway." Jon began to close the distance, his steps as slow and even as an unhurried tiger. 

Ian remained in the doorway, unsure of reality. 

"Besides, I thought you were the one who was gone," Quinn continued. "I even came back looking for you, cause I had one last thing to say to you, and it's taken me a long time to do it." Jon glared into Ian's eyes. "You," he said finally, poking Ian directly into one of his scars, only the doctor didn't feel the pain there. He felt it, like a cold spike directly in his heart. "You killed me. And now, _you_ can get the hell away from me." Jon turned his back on Ian and withdrew to the window, his arms again crossed on his chest. 

Very slowly, with heavy steps, Ian slid out of the room, his mouth still open and his eyes still clouded in shock. 

* * *

The drive down Peachtree Street from the hospital to the NationsBank Tower remained quiet and stiff. Blair's eyes were transfixed by the scenes. As they passed over the interstate, the crowded buildings parted by the bridge, he could get an unobstructed view of the downtown skyline. He recognized the cylindrical black glass tower that he normally associated with Atlanta, more from watching bad Burt Reynolds movies than from any glossy chamber of commerce brochure. Just as quickly, they crossed over the wide expressway, and another row of non-descript buildings blocked his view. Driving into Midtown, Blair locked his blue eyes onto the white modernistic curves of the High Museum. He smiled as he observed the huge steel mobile painted black, red and yellow, floating delicately in the breeze, belying its immense metal weight. Unlike the main thoroughfares in Cascade, Peachtree turned and twisted wildly, snaking around the buildings and the tall oaks that shaded the street. Every so often, Blair would spot misplaced ancient mansions hiding between the taller office buildings. Before long, they passed the Margaret Mitchell house, guarded by a spiked black iron fence, as imposing, Blair thought, as the number of pages in her melodrama that he could never read. 

He paused long enough to observe with an anthropologist's eye the other riders in the car. Sebastian stared straight ahead. Blair wondered what was going through Sebastian's mind. This was his city, and yet, he hadn't been here since the Olympics had torn them all apart. What must it have been like, to watch the handsome blond Army Ranger betray Collin and Brian's feelings for each other, only to be seduced himself? Or was it Sebastian who had seduced Didion? Didion had said as much, during that short time in Cascade when they were becoming friends, before the true betrayals played themselves out. But Sebastian had suggested, no, he had overtly said, that Brian had ceased to love Collin at all that summer. Perhaps Sebastian had convinced himself that Didion had acted like a saintly knight, delivering Collin from a bad marriage by his errant ways. 

Suddenly, the light dimmed around him, and Blair shook his head slightly to clear his thoughts. Instantly he realized that Sebastian had driven the Mercedes into an underground parking deck. Blair had no chance to look up at the NationsBank building a second time, to gauge its height and danger. He turned to look behind him, and he noticed then that Sebastian had driven fast enough to lose Brian. 

That made him roll his eyes and sigh out loud. 

After Sebastian parked the car, the others piled out and began to walk quickly towards the elevator. Blair purposefully dragged his feet. 

Sebastian noticed and he held back as Jim and Didion passed him by. "We have to take the elevator up to the main lobby." 

"Yeah, I know. Don't you think we should wait for Brian first?" 

"In a word, no." 

"You know, speaking of words, I think I have a few for you." 

Sebastian sighed, and his shoulders sagged. "Go ahead." 

"You are like so all over the map with this Brian and Collin thing." 

"And?" 

"What's your damage?" 

"Look, Brian was not a good boyfriend for Collin. He always took him for granted and he never treated Collin right and I for one was really sick of it." 

"Uh-huh. So I see. Do you think it hurt when Collin found out that Brian slept with Didion?" 

"Well, yes." 

"And it never occurred to you that it didn't hurt him just as much to know that you, his cousin, his best friend, decided to run off with Didion?" Blair watched as the expression in Sebastian's eyes changed just slightly. "See, I know how he felt about that. He told me. You hurt him, Bass. Brian may have hurt him once, but you hurt him every day." Then Blair noticed Brian walking up towards them. "Now I think it's time to join the others." 

Blair slipped away from Sebastian's side, coming closer to Brian. He held out his hand as Brian came closer. "We didn't really get a chance to talk at the hospital," Blair began. "I'm Collin's roommate." 

" _Room_ mate?" Brian asked. 

"Ah, no. We're just friends. Jim . . . he and I are together." 

"Oh. Oh, I see." 

"Where's your partner?" Blair asked. 

Folsom turned his gaze towards the concrete at his feet. "She died . . . last month." 

"Oh, I'm sorry." 

He shrugged the emotion off. "It was stupid. We were in a liquor store down in College Park, picking up a bottle of wine for a dinner party at another detective's house. We . . . walked in on a robbery in progress. She was . . . shot before we even realized what was going on." 

"So no new partner yet?" 

"Not yet. I'm flying solo for now." 

As they stepped into the open elevator, Blair paused and held the door back. Sebastian entered, and Blair said, "Thought we'd wait for you, Bass." 

Sebastian ignored the comment. 

Blair then turned back to Brian. "You know, he got his Ph.D. recently." 

"He did?" Sebastian asked, interrupting. "When did that happen?" 

"Not long after the two of you blew out of town," Blair answered him with one eyebrow raised. 

"He's a doctor, now, huh?" Brian said softly. "Good. . . . we, ah, always talked about him going back." He looked Blair in the eye, and Blair noticed a hint of sadness to his expression. "I just never thought I could support the two of us on a policeman's salary. I, uh, suppose he never needed me after all." 

The elevator door opened, and the three of them stepped out. "The security desk is this way," Brian pointed, and the others followed him. Blair's eyes took in the gaudy reddish-brown polished walls and the spearlike brass decorations that hung over a large black circular desk. He could already tell from where they stood that Didion was getting frustrated with the security officers who were leaning over the glossy counter, reading his badge. But as they approached, he could also tell that Jim was trying hard to suppress a smile. Brian broke in between them and held out his badge to the security officer. 

"Wait," the officer said to his colleague. 

The other officer put down the phone to look at him. "What?" 

"This one's from the Atlanta P.D. These guys must be legit." 

"Oh, okay. Come with me then." He grabbed a set of keys from a drawer and proceeded to walk around the counter. 

Jim's suppressed smile broke out into a smirking, self-satisfied grin. "What did I tell you?" 

Didion shrugged his shoulders, brushing off Jim's comment completely as he followed the security guard to the bank of elevators. As the first elevator opened up, the security guard stopped several suited businessmen from entering. "I'm sorry," he said. "I have the police with me and we need to get to the roof. Thank you." He held the door open for the rest of the group. Once they were inside the tight elevator and the door had closed, the security guard slipped the key into a lock on the brass panel, turning it all the way to the right. "This will take us straight up without stopping on the other floors." 

Blair felt his stomach drop as the elevator shot up. He grabbed the side of the elevator wall and closed his eyes tight. 

"You all right, Chief?" 

"I . . . I'll be fine . . . soon as I get out of here." 

"Don't you worry," the security guard said. "These elevators travel at over seventy miles an hour. You'll be at the top in no time." 

"That is so not helping," Blair shot back. 

The elevator slowed to a halt, and Blair closed his eyes when the polished doors slid open. The last thing he wanted was to be welcomed by some fifty-five story view of Atlanta. He sensed the others stepping off the elevator, and he realized how silly he probably looked. Rather than face ribbing from Jim, Blair took a deep breath, opened his eyes, and walked through the doorway with a steely determination. 

He had hoped that the elevator would open inside a small enclosure. Looking around, he wasn't prepared for the large supply room. Shelves lined the beige, concrete walls, storing cleaning supplies and equipment. The sharp tang of cleaning solutions tainted the air. 

Brian noticed the smell, too, and glancing at the walls, realized that there were no lingering black fingerprint smudges. "Did you wipe away the fingerprints?" 

The security guard shrugged. "All the fingerprints were identified, so we didn't think they were needed. Were we supposed to leave them?" 

Brian shook his head. "Don't worry about it then." He spotted the video camera in the corner of the room. "How many cameras do you have here?" 

"We have that one there," the guard pointed, "and two more outside. We've already sent copies of the tapes to you." 

"Good," Brian nodded. 

"Can we check outside?" Jim asked. 

"Sure. Don't know what you expect to find, though." The guard stepped over to a rack of mismatched ropes and belts. "We have some safety precautions, though, if you plan on climbing out onto the section where that man was found. When we're up there, we wear these safety gear." He handed a belt to Jim, then reached for another for Blair. "Wrap that around you like a belt, and buckle it here." Blair attached the heavy belt around his waist, then pulled the two shoulder straps behind his back, over his chest, buckling them to the belt. 

"Now, take this rope." The guard gave him a heavy coil of plastic rope. "This hook here attaches to the belt. Put the coil here on your hip and there's this little piece of leather that loops around the rope and snaps back to the belt. That way you don't have to carry all this rope at once." 

He handed a belt to Brian. "Now then," he held up the second hook on the other end of the plastic rope. "When you come to the edge, you just snap this hook around any of the wires or spanners, anything that it will fit on." He demonstrated by snapping the hook to the dull metal bar that held the other belts. "When you want to let go, you just push down on this little latch and unattach yourselves. Just like taking off a necklace or something." He then tossed two belt to Didion and Sebastian. 

Brian pulled off his trench coat and sports coat, draping them on a nearby table. The guard saw him, and then realized that all of the men were wearing nice coats and sweaters. "Can't say as I'd blame you about taking those nice coats off, but it's gonna be real cold outside." 

"Cold," Blair mumbled. "Why do I always have to do cold?" 

"Is this the only way up here?" Jim asked. 

"No. There's these elevators, but we're the only ones who really use 'em 'cause you have to have a key. At the other end of this room, here, is the freight elevators." He pointed. "Around that corner, there. We have two of them. They don't need keys for that, but they're real damn slow." 

Folsom was the first one to approach the metal door that lead out onto the roof. As he crossed the room, he detailed in his mind the scene. The abductors, slipping into the freight elevator and dragging Collin with them. Then pulling him out these doors and onto the roof. With a somber, focused mindset, he set his hand down on the bar-handle of the door. 

A cold blast of wind shot in his face. Brian shook it off, then turned to look over his shoulder to see Jim not too far behind him. He held the door open for Ellison, then both men let the door close on Didion as he came closer. 

Pushing the door open, Didion didn't seem to notice the affront. 

Left alone in the supply room, Sebastian turned to Blair. "You all right?" 

"I hate heights." 

"Don't think of it as height. Think of it as vista." 

"Vista?" Blair lifted both eyebrows and stared at Sebastian incredulously. 

"Yeah. Take the opportunity to see all the buildings and the streets laid out in front of you and the airplanes like they are within reach." 

Blair shook his head. "Whatever." He tested the belt several times to make sure it fit snugly, then proceeded to the door. 

"You know," Sebastian began, "there was an observation deck in the GP Center where Collin and I used to work. Well, _is_ rather, because the deck is still there of course." He stepped out into the cold air with Blair. "Anyway, we were up there one afternoon, and the public relations manager told us that the building was designed to sway twelve feet from its base." 

Blair froze. The wind blew his hair into his face, and he had to hold it back to stare at Sebastian. "Sway?" He swallowed. 

"Yeah. All these skyscrapers are designed to sway. In fact, he told us that a few years after they finished the building, a wind gust came through that caused the building to sway eight feet and it snapped right back." 

"Hey, uhm, like just how often do these wind gusts happen?" 

Sebastian shrugged his shoulders. "Don't really know." 

Blair nervously fingered the rope that hung at his hip. Taking a deep breath, he noticed a metal railing not far from the supply room. Blair stepped closer, and instinctively attached the safety hook to the railing and looked over the edge. 

The distance from him to the bottom was only ten feet. He realized then that the elevator stopped one floor above the actual roof, and that on this upper layer an entire network of metal pathways and rails lead to the edge of the building. Along the rim of their level was an observation railing, decorated in brass. 

Sebastian patted Blair on the shoulder, and the academic jumped completely from the ground. "Relax," Sebastian said with a smile. "Come on, let's go take a look from that observation deck." 

Blair shook his head, feeling the nervousness of a panic attack coming on. His hands trembled and he felt shaky and tense. 

On cue, Sebastian sensed it. He placed his hand on Blair's shoulder, and he said in his calmest voice. "You are all right, Blair." Blair glanced into his eyes at the mere sound of his voice, and some objective part of his mind took hold of him. Sebastian continued to speak in the same tone, but Blair didn't hear the words. Instead, he studied the inflection and rhythm of the sentences, and how they seemed to automatically calm him down. 

/Is this the guide voice? Is this what it sounds like? Is this what Jim feels?/ 

Before he could answer his own questions, Sebastian shook him gingerly. "Are you okay now?" 

Taking a deep, centering breath, Blair nodded. "Yeah . . . I'm okay." 

"You know, you can stay here if you want to." 

Despite the wind, they could easily hear the ringing echo of hard-soled shoes on the metallic stairs not far from the supply room door. Looking up, Blair saw Jim, Brian, Didion and the security guard climbing to a higher level. Blair scanned the girder-pyramid that soared several stories above him. "No," he said, screwing tight his resolve. "If Collin can survive this, then so can I." He moved towards one of the metal bridges that led from the supply room to the observation decks. 

As he did, he looked down at the roof just below. The roof had been covered with gray-white gravel. From where he stood, he could see that the towering girder-pyramid was held in place by red granite foundation blocks in the corners of the roof's square. 

Unlike the edge of the level they were on, the bottom level, the actual roof of the building, had the barest hint of a raised edge. Blair stopped in his tracks as the panic welled up again. There was nothing on that bottom level that would stop anyone from falling over. Such a dangerous lack of precaution seemed so absurd to him. What was the architect thinking? 

Then he noticed the massive aluminum platform that the window washers used to stand on when cleaning the glass. With the steel girder pyramid blocking the roof, the cranes that raised the cleaning platforms over the edge guards could not lift them very far. 

He clutched the belt around his waist again, just to make sure. 

Halfway towards the edge of the roof, Blair looked back at the supply room, and he then understood way the room was so expansive. Attached to the top of that room were massive satellite dishes, painted rust red to match the metal on the girders. From the interstate, he hadn't noticed them. Standing there, the design of the pyramidal spire began to make sense. This building needed all these satellites dishes to remain exposed to the air in order to receive and transmit signals. Without the pyramid-shaped mesh of girders, the beauty of the skyscraper would have been marred by these dishes. 

* * *

Continued in part three.

Link to text version of part three:  



	3. Chapter 3

This story has been split into 4 pages.

## Huntsman, What Quarry?, Part II

by Kadru

Author's webpage: <http://www.mindspring.com/~kadru/index.html>

* * *

Huntsman, What Quarry? Part II - Page Three 

Jim stopped for a moment to gather in the view. He and the others had already climbed five flights of stairs to reach the fourth observation level on the girder-pyramid. He stole a moment to stare out at the city beneath him. This high up, and this exposed to the open air in an increasingly narrow structure, Jim felt as though he were a part of the sky. He wondered then if this was what a bird felt, surrounded on all sides by freezing air. The wind stung his skin. This far into the sky, all the buildings around him seemed like tiny models of themselves -- the cars mere specks on the gray lines of roads -- the trees like round pieces of lint, those which still had leaves. Nothing looked real, except for the bulging curve of the horizon and the clouds. Everything so clean with only microscopic litter and graffiti. He followed Didion and Folsom towards the edge of the observation ring, feeling even more uneasy as he did so. 

Listening to heartbeats, he could sense that Brian was on edge, but Didion seemed robotically calm. 

In the far distance, he heard two more heartbeats, one more excited than the other. Jim peered through the gridwork beneath his feet and spotted Blair, five stories below him, his blue eyes focused on Jim like a laser. 

Taking a deep breath, Jim approached the rim of the observation deck, clipping the metal ring to the bar behind the brass decoration along the edge. He opened his senses again, focusing his sight to enlarge the objects over fifty stories below. From this height, he could easily see drivers in their cars, see office workers in the buildings that surrounded them. The air was too cold. Breathing in to catch any smell hurt the inside of his nose. Listening for sounds seemed difficult on the outer edge of the pyramid structure, because the rushing wind seemed to cover all sound with a soft cottony quality. 

Suddenly something wafted into his line of vision, just inches from his face. Jim's heart leapt into his throat and he instinctively jumped back, reaching into his coat for his weapon. With practiced ease, he drew his gun and aimed. 

As his eyes focused on the brown thing darting back and forth in the air, his shoulders sagged with embarrassment. 

A plastic grocery bag, caught by the wind and carried into the clouds. 

Both Didion and Folsom noticed Jim's reaction, and instantly they reached for their guns before they realized what had spooked him. All three of them drew in a nervous breath, and the security guard muttered, "Amazing what can find its way up here." Jim holstered his pistol, shaking the adrenaline from his shoulders. 

Didion ran his fingers through his short blond-brown hair. "Is this the girder they found MacPherson on?" he asked the guard. 

"That one," the guard pointed. From the fourth level, the pyramid's incline pitched more sharply, making it an easy chore to scale. 

Didion approached the girder, then threaded his safety line around it before looping it back to clip on his belt. He glanced over at Jim. "Do you want to climb up there with me?" 

Jim only nodded. "Stay here for me, will you?" he asked Folsom, while he waited for Didion to ascend a few feet ahead of him before he did the same. As he climbed, the sentinel didn't think the open exposure to the incredible heights would bother him, since there was a large deck stretching out beneath them, but once he began to move up the incline, the openness instantly made him feel vulnerable. At that moment, he decided to hurry this exercise along so that he could get not only Blair but now himself off of this cold tower. 

As he worked to join Didion, his sensitive fingertips scanned the metal. Jim could feel the scratches of metal boots. He couldn't tell how many people it took to get Collin tied to the girder, but he now had an idea of how he got there. Eventually, he met Didion about fifteen feet above the fourth level observation deck. They stared at each other for a moment before Didion pointed to the girder. 

Jim turned his eyes towards Didion's finger, and when he did, he noticed a thin scratch. He expanded is vision, arrowing down to unlock the scratch's secret. 

When he did, he recognized the angular shapes of letters. 

Jim dialed up his eyesight further to read the message. 

THINGS RETURN 

"What does that mean?" Jim had to shout over the sound of the wind. 

"It doesn't mean anything good." 

Jim swiveled his weight, slipping inside the pyramid structure to see if he could spot other details. The message bothered him greatly. He knew the Order understood that both he and Didion were hypersensitives. That they had left something only a sentinel would find should have come as no surprise. What upset Jim was the sudden announcement that these people had every intention of batting him and Blair around like a cat's toy before pouncing for the kill. He didn't like this helplessness. He didn't like it at all. 

When they could uncover no other details, both Didion and Jim slid back down to the deck. "Did you find anything?" Folsom asked. 

Jim turned to Didion. For once, he didn't want to say anything to the Atlanta detective, knowing it would probably either upset him needlessly or place him in unnecessary danger. His sudden urge to comply with Didion's secrecy hit him as an uncomfortable epiphany, surrounded by the clouds and the horizon. 

"No," Didion answered for him. 

"Jim?" Brian asked for confirmation. 

He waited, and then he shook his head, his guts turning in knots with guilt. 

Brian shrugged his shoulders. "Didn't think you would. I'll get back to the station. Start going over those tapes." 

* * *

Ian retreated to his blank, empty office and fell into the chair, his cane clattering on the floor beside him. And as time slowly crept by, he wasn't sure how long he sat there, staring at the grains of wood in the polished desk. His mind refused to latch on to the new information that threatened to overwhelm him. Only slowly did it dawn on him. Jon Quinn was alive. Had been alive. And in all the years that Ian had been gone from the Project, he had never attempted to contact him on the outside. As that small understanding began to take hold in his exhausted brain, another epiphany broke forward. Jon hated him. Felt betrayed. And rightfully so. Ian had injected the serums into his arm every morning, not understanding what the chemicals were but trusting that they would be safe. 

Yet he knew then that they weren't. Soldiers dying was a common thing in that clinic. And some who didn't went insane, screaming in pain as their bedsheets burned them with their barest friction, the light of the moon blinding them, the sounds of ballpoint pens on paper deafening them. Somehow, this boyish, playful soldier had made him forget the confusing, barely understood hell he was living, and he hadn't once thought of the consequences of the daily injection he administered, so lost was he in the flash of the man's twinkling eyes and disarming smile. 

That morning, when he had come into Jon's ward and told that the charming soldier had died, Ian could only stand as a mute witness as his world came tumbling down and all that he had sown harvested in bitter heaps around him. In the weeks that followed, Ian surreptitiously investigated exactly what he was doing, and what the Project's goals were. A month after Jon's death, Ian resigned from the Project with the typical warnings concerning classified secrets and a year taken out of his public life forever. 

With weak fingers, Ian lifted the phone and dialed Kiegan's cell-phone number. When Kiegan answered, Ian calmly said, "I need to return to the hotel to get my things." 

Kiegan said, with a kindness that threw Ian completely off, "Doc, you sound wasted. I'll send someone to the hotel to get your things. I'll come get you and take you to your townhouse. Okay?" 

The considerate and gentle tone of his voice struck Ian hard, and he mumbled a difficult "thank you" before hanging up and dropping his head on the desk to cry. 

* * *

Blair released all of his breath at once when the elevator doors opened onto the lobby. He stepped out before any of the other men had a chance to move, and as he quickly walked toward the parking garage, he shrugged his shoulders several times, rolling the tension from his muscles. Jim noticed the movement, and even though his expression remained stoic, he reached out to rub Blair's back between his shoulder blades. He wanted to reassure and comfort him that their investigation of the grid-work spire would be the worst experience, that everything would be downhill from now, but he knew he couldn't make such a promise, and besides, Blair would have only rolled his eyes at him with a pert, "As if." 

Detective Folsom tugged on Jim's sleeve. "Here," he said, "take my card. Call me tomorrow when y'all get moving and I'll give you an update on what I find on the videos." 

"You won't find anything," Didion threw at them both as he passed. 

Jim narrowed his eyes but he didn't take press the argument. He only nodded to Brian and added, "Thanks. I will." 

With a slow gait, Sebastian slid in between Jim and Blair. "Are y'all hungry or would you rather go by the penthouse?" 

Folsom frowned at Sebastian, then held up his hand in a casual wave to Jim and Blair. "I'll see you. Call me if y'all need anything--" then he eyed Sebastian hard, "-- like a ride when y'all get tired of these losers. And Blair?" 

"Yeah?" 

"Call me if you see Collin tonight. Let me know how he's doing. That number's my cell phone." Without waiting for a comment from Sebastian, Folsom turned and quickly stalked away from them. 

"What's the story behind this penthouse?" Blair asked Sebastian, hoping to distract him from Brian's request. 

"Didion has a penthouse here that we use sometimes. The security's really good." 

"He owns a penthouse in Atlanta?" 

"Well, he doesn't really _own_ the place. His father helped finance the building, so he and all the other owners share it as a sort of corporate apartment. We were lucky to get a hold of it with this short notice." 

"Let's go then," Jim said, his hand continuing to massage the back of Blair's neck. 

* * *

Watching Sebastian turn the car sharply into a narrow entrance of a downtown parking garage, Jim wondered anxiously if this "penthouse" would be safe. He glanced through the back window to examine the steel gates. "When do they close the entrances?" he asked. 

"At seven," Didion answered. 

Jim only pursed his lips, not making any comment. He spotted the video cameras, instantly calculating if there were any blind spots. The area seemed secure, but the Order had succeeded in getting Collin to the top floor of the NationsBank Tower, and that building had an excellent security system. As Sebastian parked the car in the reserved space nearest the elevators, Jim could only clench his jaw and worry. 

Sebastian and Didion each took a bag to lighten Jim and Blair's load, but no one spoke as they waited for the elevators. They filed on, rode the short distance to the lobby, and as they stepped out, Blair arched an eyebrow at the formal opulence. Black and red marble in a diamond pattern on the floor had been polished to such a sheen that the reflection of the light streaming in through the tall windows actually hurt his eyes. He worried about Jim's reaction. The walls were layered in a soft pocked beige stone, but both the baseboards and moldings used wide strips of dark green marble, giving the lobby a conservative, corporate elegance. The expansive hallway between the parking garage elevators and the central lobby elevators was crowded with men and women in dark suits and somber ties, dotted here and there with workers in more casual sweaters and cotton slacks. On the walls, large, ornate black metal sconces were decorated in plastic greenery, gold baubles and red ribbon. 

"You have a penthouse here?" Blair asked. 

"The top two floors," Didion answered. "They're actually corporate apartments. The rest of this building is mainly law firms and banks. My father was one of the prime investors. That's why I'm able to use the penthouse. The security is excellent." Didion lead them into a bank of elevators and pressed the call button. 

"Wouldn't it be safer to stay at one of the military bases near here?" Jim asked. 

"Doing that would limit our movements. We need to be able to react at a moment's notice." 

"So when are we supposed to sleep?" 

As one of the elevators opened, Didion stretched out his hand to hold the door. The group waited as two other people stepped inside first. "The security here is actually better than in a base. The number of people coming in and out of the upper floors is much more restricted. Not only that, but --" Didion tapped his ears, "-- with so little commotion, the noise is much less, so we can hear someone coming. Especially at night." Didion pulled out a key, slipped it into a lock on the control panel. Turning the key to the right, he pressed the 52nd floor button. 

Jim said nothing more until the two other passengers reached their floor and left the elevator. "There may only be a few people in the penthouse, but what happens when we go downstairs. Seems pretty unsecured down there." 

"You're right. It is unsecured downstairs. So don't drop your guard. This whole city is unsecured." 

Blair studied the polished orange-red marble that lined the walls of the elevator. In the left hand corner, he spotted a brass plaque that detailed the name and origin of the Spanish stone. The rock felt cold and glassy to the touch, and the veins allowed him to distract himself from the crampness and motion. Looking down at the floor, he was very thankful he hadn't been held captive in this unforgiving stone elevator, but at the same time, he feared a repeat performance. 

The elevator stopped, and Didion was the first person to step into the narrow hallway. On both ends lay polished wooden doors with impressive locks. He again used his key before pulling hard on the obviously heavy door. "This way," he said with a grunt. 

The hallway expanded into an oval shaped, almost federal foyer. The walls were painted a soft ivory color to match the light marble tile. Slowly, Blair strolled inside, looking up at the high dome above him, cast in a soft, indirect light. One set of doors to the left stood open, revealing a large bathroom. The second set remained closed. "What's in there?" he asked. 

"Storage," Sebastian answered. "Towels. Toilet paper. Vacuum cleaner. That sort of stuff." He lead the others through the large arched entryway and into an vast open room. Blair slowly turned in a circle, amazed at the two story glass windows that bound the four walls, open to the Atlanta skyline on three sides. To the left, a wide staircase curved to the second floor, where Blair assumed the bedrooms were. To the left, a stylish kitchen with black marble counters and gleaming stainless steel appliances. In the center of the wall opposite the entry way sat a large fireplace, the gas logs flickering lightly. Two dark green velvet sofas faced each other, tangent to the fireplace, with a heavy, glossy wooden coffee table between them. Blair also noticed the mahogany dining room table that could easily fit twelve people, the polished wood embellished with a gold brocade runner. Lush dark green carpet covered the floors, and heavy velvet drapes in a similar green had the effect of darkening the room some to counteract the enormous arched windows. He dropped his bag on the floor and approached the glass. 

Outside, rimming the penthouse, stretched a wide stone verandah overlooking the city. Blair imagined it was cold and windy, but he wondered what kind of view one could see from there, his aesthetic curiosity overcoming his phobia. "Where are we?" he asked. 

"There are two bell-towers in this building, one on each side," Didion replied. "The second set of apartments are in the other bell-tower. On the ceiling above us are the satellite dishes. At night, we'll need to draw these curtains. There are spotlights that highlight the towers. Makes it a little safer, too -- no one can climb up here without being seen -- but you can't really sleep well with the curtains open." 

"I'm guessing the NationsBank Tower also has spotlights since no one saw Collin?" Jim asked ironically. He frowned as he looked around, taking in the expensive carpets, the costly bronze statuettes littering the bookshelves and end tables like cheap tchotchka, the healthy palm trees in blue porcelain pots. He didn't doubt that Didion chose this penthouse not for its safety but for its opulence. He, for one, didn't appreciate Didion's attempts at trying to impress him. 

Suddenly Blair broke his train of thought by asking out loud, "So let me guess," he pointed to Didion first, and then to Sebastian. "Which one of you is a Taurus?" 

Neither answered him. 

"Where can I put these?" Jim asked, holding up his suitcase. 

"Upstairs," Sebastian said. "I'll show you." 

Both Jim and Blair followed him while Didion remained in the living room. At the top of the stairs, a hallway lead back into the center of the penthouse, with two massive bedrooms on either side. "Didion and I are over here," Sebastian pointed to the right. "You and Jim are over there. Each room has it's own private bathroom." 

Jim sighed. At least that was a plus. Living at such close quarters to Didion and Sebastian made him extremely uncomfortable. He strolled towards the window, opening the drapes to peer out at the city below. Just to his right, he could see the polished red granite of the Georgia-Pacific Center throwing back the sunlight, and there, like a tiny gold wart, the dome of the Capitol Building, and the red oval of the Ted Turner Stadium. It seemed strange to him to see so many tall buildings and the stretch of land around him with no sight of water. He missed it, missed the sea's calming surface and its centering smell. 

Blair appeared beside him, drawing the drapes a little further to see. "Cool," was his only comment before turning around to dump his duffel bag on the bed. "Hey Chief," Jim began, "before you do that, let's get some answers from these guys." 

Blair followed Jim out of the bedroom and down the sweep of stairs to the second main penthouse floor. Didion had already started the gas fire in the hearth, and Sebastian was pouring them both a cocktail of scotch over ice. 

"Listen up," Jim barked from the foot of the stairs. "I'm tired of being kept out of the loop on this. I want some answers about who these people are." 

Didion only arched an eyebrow. "I'm not keeping anything from you." 

"Yeah, right." 

"What do you want to know?" 

"I want to know everything about the Order. Who are they? Where do they come from? What's going on here?" 

Didion took the tumbler that Sebastian offered him, then he sat down on the sofa. As Sebastian set down his own drink on a sandstone coaster, he offered, "Can I get y'all a drink?" 

"No," Jim answered for both of them. "Just answers." 

"Fine, what do you want to know first?" 

"Who are these people?" 

Didion leaned forward. "We don't know for sure." 

Jim rolled his eyes. He slumped down onto the opposite sofa and crossed his arms. "Go on." 

"When it comes to how these people got started, all we have is folk lore, traditional stories." 

"Folk lore?" Blair moved around the sofa and sat down, his interest piqued. "What kind of folk lore?" 

"Mostly in the diplomatic circles." Didion sipped his scotch. "From what we can gather, they were at their height during the Renaissance." 

"The Renaissance?" Blair smiled, then waved his hand, disbelieving. "Man, get out of here." 

Didion didn't bother with Blair's teasing, but continued. "They have always been a secret society of warriors, but they discovered, god knows when, that by personally threatening a monarch, they could control national policy. Their soldiers, both men and women, were trained as killers since early childhood as assassins. They could break through any defense and kill any ruler, no matter how well he was guarded." 

"You mean like the Assassins of Alamut?" Blair asked. 

"The what?" Jim leaned forward. 

"The Assassins of Alamut," Blair replied. "You see, they were this Shi'ite sect, near the mountain of Alamut, between the Caspian Sea and Iran. This sect was led by someone called 'The Old Man of the Mountain.' Anyway, they would take twelve-year old boys, get them stoned on hashish, and then after they had passed out, they would carry these boys into this fake 'garden of paradise.' That way the young boys would believe they had seen paradise and that it existed. Then the Old Man would always remind you of this memory when you got older, so that when he sent you out to assassinate someone, you would believe you would return to paradise if you got killed along the way. Turned them into extremely dangerous fanatics. Because they smoked hash, the Egyptians called them Hashasheen, and that's how we got the word 'assassin.'" 

"So this Order comes from these people." 

"Not really," Didion answered. "The Alamuts were destroyed by the Mongols in the late 1200's. But we believe that a similar sect developed in Europe, probably at about the same time." 

"Which was when?" Jim asked. 

"What, 1000 A.D.?" Blair offered. 

"That's when the Alamuts were founded, or so we believe." 

Jim shook his head in confusion. "So these people are Islamic fanatics?" 

"Not really. What if a Christian sect were founded at that time, based on the same ideals, but were never destroyed? 

"Let me get this straight . . . this is all speculation?" 

Sebastian interrupted. "Speculation is all we have to go on. No one can get inside the organization since they only induct children." 

"So you're saying these people control the world?" 

"Not any more, not like they used to," Sebastian said. "Their entire philosophy is built on manipulating one ruler. But now, populations are too large and the world demands democracy, so they aren't as powerful as they once were, except where there's a great deal of political instability, or they're dealing with totalitarian regimes. Like Latin America, or Africa and Asia." 

"Then why are they here?" 

Didion stood up, pacing. He clinked the ice in his tumbler. "The United States has all the money." 

"I get it," Blair sparked. "You said they controlled organized crime." 

"They do. Yes, they have legitimate businesses, but the bulk is criminal. Smuggling. Hired thugs. Corporate espionage." Pieces clicked into place in Jim's mind. "You killed Anthony Caldwell, didn't you?" Jim accused him. "He was the drug kingpin for the Pacific Northwest, and just when he was about to make some major deal, he got shot on his boat in Seattle from long range, at about the same time you were in Cascade. You did that, didn't you?" 

Didion took a deep breath, stared at Jim for a few seconds, before he said, "I was ordered to." 

"We worked on that case for months with the Seattle, Tacoma, Bellingham and Vancouver P.D.! We almost had him!" 

"I don't know what to tell you, Jim. It wasn't my call." He finished his scotch in one gulp, hissed as the alcohol burned the back of his throat, then leaned against the windowframe to stare out at the city. "I . . . hated doing it." 

"This is the reason the Project was started?" Blair asked. 

"Yes." 

"So what went wrong?" 

"I don't know. Perhaps it was the way it was conducted. Taking American soldiers and turning them into freaks against their will." Didion noticed Jim stiffen with insult, and he offered a gentle, "Sorry." He placed his empty tumbler on the bar, then returned to the sofa. "They had us on a leash, but then they stopped ordering us to kill the Order. They made us kill others, people we thought were innocent. But what could we do? If we disobeyed, we were discharged. If we were discharged, we stopped receiving the serum. If we stopped getting the serum, we died." 

"And that's it? Our government created the Project just to stop drug runners?" 

"Drug runners and assassins who can break into any security complex and kill anyone at will? Men and women who can threaten high government officials to do their bidding? I'd say that warrants a defense." 

Sebastian glanced at his watch. "Guys?" he asked, "Could we talk about it in the car? I'd like to spend some time with Collin before dinner." He looked over at Blair and Jim. "I'm guessing you guys will probably want to crash a little early tonight." 

Blair looked over at Jim. "That's sounds good to me, man." Jim just shrugged his shoulders. Blair could tell by the expression on his face that Jim was still not comfortable with the situation, but he wondered if he ever would be. 

* * *

After Kiegan had dropped Ian off at his new townhouse behind the hospital, the young doctor did nothing but wander from room to room, hoping to find something to distract his jumbled and painful thoughts from Jon Quinn. The home had been furnished, but it wasn't his _home_. Instead, it felt more like a non-descript corporate apartment -- the framed, mediocre copies of famous art prints -- the plants, all of them silk, placed in the corners of the rooms -- the furniture plain but decorated with ornate pillows. As he strolled around the bottom floor, moving from living room to dining room to kitchen, Ian noticed a cabinet and he opened it. There before him lay a fully stocked bar. Without even thinking his decision, Ian grabbed a tumbler, snatched up the bottle of Crown Royal, and proceeded to make himself a highball. Tonight, he would get drunk. 

Big mistake. The alcohol numbed his heart at first, but later his thoughts became unbridled, romping across his mental landscape with half-dreams and misinterpreted memories of that brief time in Virginia when a playful cowboy had completely distracted him. 

/Hey Doc?/ 

/Ian leans into Quinn's shoulder as the two of them walk down the clinic's hallway. Quinn is still limping slightly from the friendly-fire gunshot wound he had suffered in his leg./ 

/No one's in this room. What's it for?/ 

/It's just a spare bedroom, Ian answers./ 

/It'll do, Quinn says with a lascivious grin. In a flash, he steps behind Ian, wrapping his long arms around Ian's waist and dragging him into the empty room. The doctor can only laugh as he catches the door, shutting it on their way in./ 

/Quinn's warm hands press against Ian's face as the Texan claims him for his first kiss that morning. Without any preliminary teasing or tasting, Quinn opens Ian's mouth with a heady passion that makes Ian's knees tremble. The barest hint of stubble on Quinn's tanned chin scrapes against Ian's tender neck as the soldier sucks and nibbles on the exposed curve. Ian's hands caress and grip his back. This soldier may be tall and lanky, but he has a sinewy strength and endurance which Ian knows will leave him boneless and exhausted for the rest of the day. Only he doesn't care as he pulls Quinn's hospital pajamas from his shoulders and attacks his hairy chest, finding the tiny buds of his nipples that makes Quinn gasp, then laugh out loud./ 

Ian forced the memory out of his head, but pushing that one aside only allowed others in -- flashes of sound and images of the two of them before that fateful morning when Ian was told that Quinn had died in his sleep. And then, those days that followed, as Ian searched through files when no one was around, discovering the secrets behind the Project, secrets which were not hidden too arduously, secrets anyone could have found with some searching. Only Ian had never felt the need to do so before. And that was why he had cursed himself with Quinn's "death." He could have prevent that. If only he had been a better doctor. If only he hadn't taken their orders without question. 

But he hadn't. He was a failure as a doctor and the result was the death of a man who had completely seduced him. 

And a man he couldn't forget, regardless of how many lovers he had. Not Blair. Not Collin. 

Only, he was never dead. The Project had killed him, as they had killed every successful soldier, to be reborn as an assassin like Didion Sachs. It hurt him to think of his Quinn living for years in the same manner that Sachs had, but it hurt him even more to realize that all this time, Quinn had blamed him for the results. Quinn obviously thought that Ian knew exactly what he was doing each morning as he injected him with a serum that would chain him forever to a life of killing without choice, haunted by the shadows of cancer just outside his periphery. 

Could he ever convince this living Quinn of his innocence? 

Could he ever convince himself? 

Quinn hated him. It was as easy as that. The damage was done. No sense pulling back on the trigger now. 

Sadly enough, Ian realized that Quinn had every right to hate him. All the judgments that Quinn leveled against him, Ian had already leveled against himself. 

* * *

On the drive back to Piedmont Hospital, Sebastian and Blair tested each other, offering first small talk, followed by polite questions. Jim sat in the back seat, his eyes scanning the city scenes so that he appeared distracted, but his ears caught every word the two guides shared, and more importantly, the tone. He imagined in Blair's voice the footsteps of a man walking across ice, tipping the point of the toe down until the entire foot lay flat, then the slow shifting of weight with the lungs holding their breath in the event of cracking. At one stop light, Sebastian pointed to the glitter and tinsel decorating the facade of a moderate-sized office tower, and that began a conversation on holidays -- Blair's remembered Hanukkahs compared with Sebastian's Christmases past. Jim turned towards Blair and he quickly recognized the fiery glint of enjoyment in their repartee, followed a few minutes later by an abashed smile. 

By the time they reached the hospital's parking garage, he and Blair were ribbing each other like old friends again. Jim practically groaned as they all stepped into the elevator together. He wondered to himself if what he was feeling wasn't jealousy. He knew that Sebastian and Blair had slept together once, when they were separated. Didion had said so, before he had "disappeared," before Sebastian had "died." He chastised himself for feeling it -- Blair had done nothing to make Jim suspect any disloyalty. That penalty lay in his court. 

Watching them together, laughing -- it didn't seem right to Jim, not after Sebastian had left him for dead in Cascade. Not after less than eight hours together. Blair had confessed to him back home that the two of them had experimented with some sort of trance state, and that they were now connected somehow. Jim wanted to lump all of that in the bullshit category, but then again, talking black panthers and sentinel mysticism could both be stuffed into that same file folder. 

Either way, Jim didn't like it, and self-analysis was never one of his strong suits. 

When the elevator opened, he quickly picked up on other animated conversations, and the noise swarmed in his sensitive ears -- Sebastian and Blair merging with the prattle of strangers in the waiting area. As they turned the sharp corner, suddenly there was silence. Words that were once flying back and forth immediately halted, crashing to the floor. Jim looked first to Sebastian and Blair, and when he noticed the look of both fear and surprise, something in his gut instincts reacted. 

"Bass?" a stranger asked. 

"Oh my god," he heard the young man whisper. 

In seconds, a crowd of men and women bolted from the sofas and chairs that lined the waiting room and darted towards him, their silence shattered by ecstatic screams and shouts of "Bass!" In an instant, Sebastian was surrounded by hugs. 

"Holy shit!" one man cried. "He's alive." 

"Paul!" Sebastian pulled him into his arms. "Oh my god I haven't seen you in a hundred years." 

"Hey, I'm not the one who left." 

"And Alex!" 

Jim noticed Didion pull away, his arms crossed and his face almost dour. Even though he didn't care for the agent, Sebastian's excited reunion annoyed Jim with its noise and he followed Didion to the side, leaning against the wall. Keeping quiet, he watched Didion stare at Sebastian being so cheerfully greeted by the friends he had left behind. Then the epiphany struck. Sebastian had not seen these people because he had been on the run with Didion. He observed as Sebastian introduced Blair to the others, and how Blair's normally enthusiastic personality broke through all the barriers that he had thrown up since they had arrived. Even Sebastian seemed to change, become almost like Blair in his exuberance and laughter. 

Suddenly Didion shook his head before slipping away from the scene. 

"So why aren't y'all with Collin?" Sebastian asked. 

"Oh, the doctor was in there checking him out," Alex answered, her slender arm still snaked around Sebastian's waist. "I think I saw him leave, but we were just out here catching up. Oh my god, you look so good!" Then she ran her hand through his hair. "But, honey, what's up with this hair? Why are the tips blond?" She backed away from him, with her hands on her hip. "Is this some reverse Berlin thing?" 

Sebastian smirked. "No! It's a long story." 

"Let me guess," Paul added with a nudge to his ribs. "You tried to dye your hair blond, didn't you. Oh my god, that is so gay." 

"Well, hello!" Sebastian held out his arms. 

Blair patted Sebastian on the shoulder. "I'm gonna check on Collin." 

"I'll be right there," Sebastian answered before falling back into the animated conversation with his friends. Jim joined Blair's side, walking with him down the hallway and into Collin's room. Blair knocked on the open door before stepping inside. "Anybody home?" he called out. 

Sitting up in bed, Collin instantly glanced in Blair's direction and smiled. "Blair! I guess I wasn't dreaming." 

"Nah," Blair approached the bed. "I'm still here." When he spotted Marjorie MacPherson and Collin's grandmother sitting next to him, he waved. "Hello again." 

Before he could really have a chance to talk, a nurse entered the room. "Mr. MacPherson?" she asked. 

"Yes." 

"I just need to take some blood." 

"Vampires," he griped as he held out his arm. Then he said to Blair. "They've been doing this every two hours." 

"We're just checking the drug levels in your blood," the nurse defended herself in a sweet tone. 

"Whatever." 

Blair leaned over the foot of the bed. "So how are you feeling?" 

"I'm doing better. This morning, did I really see Bass?" 

"Yeah. He's outside. Talking to the others." 

Collin smiled bashfully. "Can you believe they came? Paul works here handling all the insurance and he saw my name come across one of his reports. He called everyone." Then Collin jerked his arm. "Ow! Shit!" 

"Sorry," the nurse offered. 

"Jeez, that hurt!" 

She rubbed his arm. "Oh, come on. It didn't hurt that bad." 

Collin glared at her. "Excuse me, but do I look butch?" 

The nurse grinned as she unwrapped the rubber strap on his upper arm. Before she could offer a retort, though, Collin's grandmother interrupted: "With all that long hair and that fuzzy beard of yours, I'd say you're looking more like Gabbie Hayes to me." 

Collin cut his eyes at her. "You know, Grandmother, I don't think I've ever had the opportunity to tell you to kiss my ass." 

"Collin!" his mother barked. 

Blair tried to intercede. "The doctors said he'd be irritable." 

"Irritable?" Mother MacPherson shot back. "How can you tell?" 

"Look old woman," Collin began, "remember I'm the one who's going to choose your nursing home. And if push comes to shove, I'll start calling you Granny in public. Or worse, Big Mama." 

Mother MacPherson raised her hand. "Forget this." She rose from her chair. "If I want this kind of abuse, I can go to Sears." She picked up her purse. "If they are letting you out of here tomorrow, I for one am not gonna have you running around looking like a hippie." She hooked her thumb at Marjorie. "I got an eyeful of that from your mother in her day." 

Marjorie narrowed her eyes and almost snarled. 

"I'm going shopping," his grandmother said at last, "and I'm going to find you something decent to wear. Maybe even shave that beard of yours." As she headed towards the door, she saw Jim standing there. For a second, she scanned him, before she patted him on the upper chest. "You're a tall drink of water," she commented. She looked at Blair and asked, "Is this yours?" 

Blair laughed out loud, then remembering who she was, covered his mouth. "Yes ma'am." 

"Hmph." Then she threw back at Collin. "If you're gonna go to the trouble of being a homo-sexual, the least you can do is land one like this." 

"Hey," Collin replied, "I was seeing a doctor in Cascade." 

"Seeing a doctor, huh?" she asked. "What for? Gonorrhea?" 

Collin's mouth opened several times but nothing came out but offended gasps. Marjorie glanced down at the floor, her hand rubbing her forehead. 

Mother MacPherson wiggled her eyebrows at Jim before stepping out of the room. 

Still laughing, Blair sat down on the edge of the bed. "So is this true? Are they going to let you go tomorrow?" 

"That's what they're saying." He shrugged his shoulders. "I've been kicked out of worse places." 

Blair placed his hand on Collin's thigh. "You scared the hell out of me, man." 

"Oh, well, let me be the first to assure you that I was more scared than you were." 

Blair's high spirits grew somber. "Did they hurt you?" 

Collin's expression took on a faraway look as he stared off into space. 

"Collin? You okay?" 

"Huh?" He shook his head slightly. "Oh. Yeah. They did." 

"Do you want to talk about it?" 

"No. Not really." 

"No problem. I'm just glad you're safe." 

"I'm fine. Now. But y'all didn't have to fly out here." 

Jim spoke up finally, moving closer. "Wasn't our choice, really." 

"What do you mean." 

"Sachs dragged us here," he answered. 

"You're kidding." 

"I wish I were." 

"What for?" 

"He wants us to work together to catch the guys who kidnapped you." 

"Oh, Jim, that is so not a good thing." 

"What do you know about it?" 

"Jim, I know you've heard me say this time and again, but I don't trust Didion." 

"That makes two of us." 

"He plans, non-stop. He manipulates and connives and twists everything and everyone until things come out the way he wants them. And these people --" Collin shuddered, hard. 

Blair touched his shoulder "You okay?" 

Collin lifted his hand as he regained his composure. "I just . . . I don't like the thought of y'all with Didion on one side and . . . these people on the other." 

"Can you tell us anything about them? Anything at all?" Jim asked. "We don't know what we're up against, and something tells me Sachs isn't telling us the whole story." 

"Jim, I wish I could." Collin crossed his arms and stared down at the blanket. "All I remember is this room. It was cold and the walls were made of bricks. I was--" Collin began to tremble. "They kept me tied down and they kept--" he rubbed his arms, at the bend of the elbow, "-- they kept injecting me with something. I never really saw anyone and I don't even know what I told them." 

Marjorie rose from her chair and sat down on the bed, opposite Blair. "Do y'all have to ask these questions right now?" 

Collin stopped her. "It's all right. These are the good guys." 

"Is that all you can tell us?" Jim probed. 

With a sigh, Collin answered, "I'm sorry." 

"Hey, don't worry about it," Blair said. "We can take care of these guys. The important thing is that you're safe and alive." 

"Did you say Ian was okay?" 

"Ian's fine." 

Collin motioned towards the phone. "I tried to call him at home. I couldn't reach him." 

"I spoke to him before we left." Blair glanced at Jim. "He said he was taking a new job in Austin." 

"Texas? For real?" 

"Shocked the hell out of me, too," Blair confessed. 

"Do you know his number?" 

"No, but I think we can get it." 

"Please. I want to talk to him." 

"No problem." 

Collin turned to look out the window. "I wish this hadn't happened." 

"I know, man. I know." 

"Blair, promise me you'll be careful." 

"I always am." 

"And Jim, I meant what I said. Don't turn your back on Didion. There's just something about him that's not right." 

* * *

The remainder of that afternoon passed by easily, as Sebastian and Collin's friends drifted in and out of the room, the conversation and humor flowing comfortably. They stayed at the hospital until six o'clock, when Didion stopped Jim in the hallway. "Hey, man, I'm getting a little hungry. Are you?" 

"I could eat." 

Blair was walking by them, carrying a soda. "Eat?" 

"Are you hungry?" Didion asked again. 

"In a big way." 

Sebastian stepped out of the room, moving to join them. Didion placed his hand on the small of his back and said to the others, "I know of a fantastic steak house called Morton's. It's next door to our penthouse." 

"I could go for a steak." 

"Morton's cuts these huge steaks, man. Smallest size is 17 once." 

"Seventeen ounces! Man!" Blair threw up his hands. "That's a walking heart attack." 

Sebastian grinned. "But what a way to go." 

"Wait a minute," Blair turned to Sebastian. "You mean you let Didion do that to his cholesterol level?" 

Sebastian shrugged his shoulders. "Well, yeah." 

"What kind of guide are you?" 

"A southern male guide. Morton's has a New York strip with my name on it, just waiting for me." 

Blair could only shake his head. 

"I'm sure they might have some sort of fish for you," Sebastian offered. 

* * *

In a conference room in the Midtown precinct, Brian Folsom groaned with frustration as he hit the rewind button on the VCR's remote for an uncounted time. Scattered across the worn surface of the table lay three sets of video cassettes -- one set revealing the interior of the supply room, and the other two covering views of the pyramid structure. Brian had been staring at the grainy black and white images since he had left the others after examining the NationsBank Tower. His eyes were bloodshot, and several empty cans of Diet Coke littered the room. His vision told him that there was nothing amiss about the recordings -- no security officers unaccounted for, no strange figures slinking in the shadows \-- but his intelligence argued that there had to be something. Collin didn't just materialize on the outside of the pyramid. Someone had to slip past the defenses and place him there, but how? 

Brian pressed play again. He wiped his face with his hand, then leaned forward to stare at the television screen. There had to be some detail. Some small piece of evidence. After watching for a minute, he frowned, crossed his arms, and leaned into the back of the chair. His eyes caught on the image of the safety belts hanging by the metal rod near the elevators. He recalled then the tight constraints of the belt against his chest, and how he had been standing there, so close to Didion, so close to the man who had left him so undone, and yet, he hadn't lifted a finger to arrest him, to bring him down, to repay justice eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth, stripe for a stripe. 

For a moment there, he felt the cold December wind blast across his skin as it had fifty stories above the city. The air had practically stung, and his cheeks still felt hot and scratchy from the burns. He had let Didion stand that close to him, breathing his same air, almost as if time had burped and two years were suddenly back among the living -- he and Didion dabbling in something elicit and deliciously wrong. 

Brian closed his eyes and blushed from shame. 

Yes, it had been exciting, leaving the boring familiarity that had become the day to day life of a lifetime companion with a house and mortgage and the future of rapacious aging. With Didion, life had taken on a verve that he hadn't felt in years -- new, fresh, experimental -- finding the areas on Didion's taller, more muscular body that when plucked made the man sing -- feeling that hard flesh writhe beneath his skin -- having those strong hands guiding him, controlling him, laying him on his back and fucking him hard. 

Only to be dumped by Didion the moment Collin discovered their affair, disappearing without even so much as a lame "I'll call you." 

In a daze, losing Collin, losing Didion, Brian had turned to the only man he knew would help -- Detective Scott Addams -- his quiet, stoic partner who had some uncanny knack of knowing everything just seconds before they happened -- who could nail a shot from a sickening distance. 

The memories seemed spiny-coated, and Brian forced them away, zeroing his attention back to those snake-looped safety belts hanging by the elevators. He had worn one of those belts today, to follow Didion and that other detective, the one from Washington state, the one who reminded him a little of Scott, the one who seemed to be close friends with Collin. How could he stand to be so close to Didion? This Ellison character had confessed to having the same history that Folsom had with the mysterious agent, and yet, they seemed to be working together toward some secret end. 

Brian blinked. 

He narrowed his eyes as he stared at the television screen, his hand on the rewind button. He backed up the recording several frames. 

Two safety belts. 

Four safety belts. 

The frame counter had only advanced a few seconds. 

Brian rewound the entire tape, them pressed play. Four safety belts. 

He moved the frames forward. 

Two safety belts. 

His shoulders sagged. In that moment, he realized that the video tape had been looped from some other time, covering up whatever had occurred in those spare minutes. He pinched the inside corners of his eyes and sighed. This was the only evidence he would have. Dropping his hands, he watched the time counter in the lower right-hand side of the screen count, unmolested. Somehow or another, the abductors had tapped into the security system to maintain the frame count. Perhaps a hack? 

He pressed the stop button. Rising slowly, stretching out his legs and then his spine, he groaned his complaints before leaving to return to his office, there to find the paperwork he would need to begin investigating the security system at NationsBank, to hopefully uncover some trace of the hack that had inserted a copied video into the live feed. 

* * *

Dinner in the opulent but small downtown restaurant passed without conflict among the four of them. The wait staff smothered them with almost embarrassingly attentive service, and the meal sat so heavily on their stomachs that they found themselves sitting at the table, drinking fine coffee, Didion and Jim remaining somewhat silent as Sebastian and Blair carried the bulk of the conversation. By the time the restaurant closed, their meals had settled, and they walked in silence back to the penthouse. 

Once inside, Didion lit the fire again before picking a light jazz CD to play in the background. Sebastian opened the small refrigerator underneath the wet bar, pulling out several beers for all of them. Jim shucked off his coat, taking Blair's at the same time, then hung them in the front closet before returning to the main room. Blair could only smirk before turning to warm his hands in front of the fire. Here they were, in a penthouse, miles away from home, and Jim still insisted on perfect order in his surroundings. He watched his lover note where Didion stood, then cross the room to peer out the windows at the speckled lights of the city below. 

Sebastian noticed the suffering smile on Blair's face, and it warmed his heart to see that kind of playfulness between Jim and Blair again. He stepped away from the bar and came closer to Blair to hand him a beer. Blair took a sip, set the mug down on the mantle and returned to gazing at the flames. The gas fire cast his face in tiger-stripes. Sebastian smiled wider at him, and then he ventured, "I . . . I probably shouldn't bring this up, but I just want you to know, regardless. . . . I'm glad you and Jim are back together." 

"No thanks to the both of you," Jim growled from his place at the window. 

"I . . . I know. That's why I'm glad y'all are back together." 

"Well," Blair said after taking a drink from his mug. "It wasn't easy. I . . . I admit I like so had a hard time forgiving Jim for some of the things he did." Jim's jaw clenched but he didn't turn away from the window. 

"You mean Lee Whitmore?" 

That made Jim turn around, unsure if he needed to defend himself and yet at the same time pinned by remorse. 

"Why?" Sebastian asked. 

Blair stared at Sebastian with wrinkled eyebrows. "What do you mean, why?" 

"Well . . . I mean . . . that wasn't his fault." 

Jim finally moved away from the window, coming closer. "What do you mean, it wasn't my fault?" 

"I thought I told you." 

Then Blair stepped away from the mantle, approaching Sebastian with an angry glint in his eyes. Didion noticed the danger and he moved closer as well. 

"I guess I didn't have time to tell you. But that day . . . that day after the race . . . we . . . we drugged the bottles of water." 

"You did what?" Jim asked, menacing Sebastian. 

"We drugged the bottles of water so y'all would sleep together." 

/Drugged?/ The word seemed to pop in Jim's mind like a hot spark. /You fucking drugged me? You made me sleep with that man, made me cheat on Blair against my will? You made me hurt him more than I ever thought I could possibly hurt him and you can just say it so fucking lightly?!/ Months of anxiety, and an entire day of being around both Didion and Sebastian, burst inside Jim in an explosion of pure anger as he pulled his fist back and punched Sebastian across the face so hard he felt bones crack. Sebastian was literally thrown several feet back, landing in an ungraceful and unconscious heap. 

Jim had only seconds to react before he felt Didion's fist smash into his jaw. The sentinel grabbed him by the shirt and returned the punch, his knuckles aching but his rage knitting over the pain. 

"Don't you ever touch him!" Didion shouted, pummeling Jim again and again in the ribs. "You have a problem, you come to me!" 

"All right," Jim growled as he tackled Didion, his arms around his torso, throwing him to the ground. They wrestled for dominance, crashing into a potted plant that stood by the far wall. The fichus tree tumbled onto the carpet, spilling dirt that mired in their clothes and hair. Jim sprung to his feet. Didion quickly pulled himself down into a crouch, throwing out his leg to trip Jim and sending him sprawling. 

Jim landed on his back, then rolled onto his side quickly so that he could stand on his feet. Didion was there waiting for him, bashing Jim so hard with his fist that Jim's vision darkened for a mere second before his rage bloomed. He jabbed Didion hard in the stomach, again and again, driven by each little "oof" he heard from the Ranger's already split lips. 

Didion swung out his elbow, catching Jim's jaw and throwing him sideways before both of Didion's fists fell on his shoulders like a hammer, then his knee thrust up to crack his jaw again. Rising from the force, Jim threw first his right fist into Didion's cheek, then his left, and finally his right again as the man stumbled backwards. 

Undaunted, the assassin rushed him again. Jim deflected his punch with his right arm, then his left, but Didion judged his opponent's vulnerability and his knee shot forward, kicking Jim in the groin. As the sentinel's body betrayed him with its pain, curving downward, Didion clipped him hard under the chin. With his back suddenly straightened, Jim pulled his arm back and threw his knuckles straight into the bridge of Didion's nose. 

Falling on his back, Didion groaned before slowly pulling himself up to his feet, staggering. Jim could barely see as he fell to his knees. Blood poured down both of their faces from the many cuts and from their battered noses. Didion wiped away the dark red with the back of his hand, his blue eyes still ablaze with wrath, watching to see if Jim still had more fight in him. Ellison stared at him just as hard, but he still held his ground. The assassin took his eyes away from Jim as he steadied himself, his hands on his knees, catching his breath. 

Finally, Didion began to stumble towards his fallen guide, and as he did, he moved near Blair. He stopped long enough to stare menacingly at Sandburg, but he wasn't expecting the academic's next move. 

Blair reared back and punched Didion as hard as he could across the left cheekbone. Didion was thrown back a step. Blair spun around, gripping his wrist and trying to shake the sharp daggers of pain from his knuckles. Behind him, Didion's spine suddenly straightened with anger. 

From his place on the floor, Jim saw Didion's fingers close into a tight fist and his arm muscles tense. With all of his strength, Jim rose from the floor to Blair's defense. 

Only Didion saw his movements in the reflection of the glass windows. He watched the mirror image with his back to the sentinel. He waited and before Jim could react, Didion's right elbow snapped backwards, catching Jim where his jaw met his ear. Thrown off guard and spinning, Jim couldn't react in time as Didion's torso pivoted and his right fist came down on the same exact place for a second hit. Jim fell back on the couch, and as he landed on the cushions, he legs shot up, kicking Didion in the thigh and sending him reeling over the glass coffee table. Blair dodged Didion as he fell, the small table tangling the assassin's legs. 

Jim pulled himself up from the sofa and stood in front of Blair, protecting him with his body. Didion teetered for a few minutes on his feet before regaining his balance. Slowly, he turned around, his eyes still hungry but his body too exhausted to fight any longer, sweat dripping from his forehead. He and Jim glared at each other, their eyes never parting, as Didion limped towards his lover, still motionless on the floor. When finally Didion's eyes pulled away from Jim to Sebastian, Jim collapsed on the sofa, his breathing ragged. Blair watched Didion as the man bent down and pulled Sebastian's unconscious body across his lap, Sebastian's head against his chest. Didion's arms wrapped around Sebastian's body and he buried his face in the crook of Sebastian's neck. 

Letting out a heavy sigh, Blair moved into the downstairs bathroom to grab a handful of towels. He then stopped in the kitchen, first to dampen one of the cloths, and then to fill another one with ice. Blair sat down on the sofa beside Jim and very gently began to wipe the blood from his face. Jim flinched from Blair's first touch, then relaxed into his care as the white cloth slowly turned pink. 

From the corner of their eyes, they saw Didion slowly rise with Sebastian's limp body in his arms. Still weak, Didion fell back against the wall with a thud, then forced his exhausted body to straighten itself before carrying his lover up the stairs into their bedroom. Blair sighed heavily again. Without looking into his sentinel's eyes, he handed him the ice-filled towel before grabbing more towels from the downstairs bathroom. Again he wet one, filling the other with ice, then followed Didion up the stairs and into their bedroom. 

Didion had carefully lain Sebastian on their bed and was just coming out of their bathroom when Blair arrived with the towels. The blond's eyes peered at him for a moment with an odd look of animal expectation before returning to his lover, the movement of his legs still awkward and blocky. He sat down heavily on the mattress, then broke a vial of smelling salt with his fingers. Gently he slid one arm under Sebastian's shoulders to lift him up before waving the white capsule under his nose. 

Sebastian jerked suddenly, then groaned. 

"Bass?" Didion hissed through bleeding lips. 

"Where . . . ouch." His hand rose to gingerly touch his already swelling face. 

Blair stepped forward and handed Didion the towel filled with ice. The barest hint of a shameful, abashed smile crossed Didion's lips as he took the towel from Blair, then carefully pressed it against Sebastian's cheek. 

"Ow, ow, ow!" Sebastian complained, his fingers meshing with Didion's against the towel. After a few moments, he looked up and saw the blood on Didion's face. "Jeez, what did I miss?" 

"Nothing," Didion whispered as he lowered Sebastian back onto the pillow. 

"That doesn't look like nothing." 

"Just . . . never mind . . . how do you feel?" 

"My whole head hurts." 

Didion pulled the cloth away, and with his fingertips, gently traced Sebastian's cheekbone. "The bone's not broken," he said finally, "but there are two hairline cracks." He ran the back of his knuckles against Sebastian's unbruised right temple, and when they left a light stain of blood, Didion pulled back. He stared at his hands, then at the ice-filled towel, noticing the blood there. Blair saw his actions, and without comment he handed Didion the wet cloth. The man wiped the blood from his hands before returning to caress Sebastian's face. "Do you need to go to the emergency room?" 

Sebastian rose up on his elbows, his eyes clenched shut. He rested his shoulders against the headboard of the bed and sighed. "I don't think so. I've suffered worse." 

Didion turned to Blair. "Go check on Jim. See if we need to take him to the hospital." 

Blair nodded, again in silence. He slipped out of Didion and Sebastian's bedroom, crossing the hall into his own. Once inside, he grabbed more towels plus the first aid kit from their bathroom, setting it down on their bed before climbing downstairs. Jim remained on the sofa, his head thrown back on the cushions and the ice-pack pressed against his face. "Come on," he commanded to Jim, reaching out for his hand to help him rise from the sofa. 

Jim complied without comment, and Blair wrapped his arm around his waist to steady him. 

"Do you need to go to the emergency room?" he asked as he guided Jim towards the stairs. 

"No. I think I'm fine," Jim said softly. "How's Bass?" 

"You hit him pretty hard, but I think he's okay. Didion says you fractured his cheekbone." 

"Oh," Jim said matter-of-factly. 

"I know," Blair said, halfway up the stairs with Jim. "I know I'll be sending my karma back a few notches when I say this, but I so don't feel bad about that at all." 

They remained quiet as they moved into the bedroom. Jim fell on the mattress with a thud, sprawling out before wrestling with his body to lie down on his side of the bed. Blair pulled off his lover's boots while Jim readjusted the ice pack on his face. With a grim determination, Blair ripped open the package of cotton balls, then soaked one with hydrogen peroxide. When he dabbed Jim's first bloody knuckle, the sentinel winced from behind the towel. Blair blew on the bubbling knuckle, then proceeded with the painstaking process of cleaning every scrape, dabbing ointment on each one before moving on to Jim's right hand. Once they were cleaned, Blair slid closer to the head of the bed, carrying his first aid supplies with him. 

"Let me work on your face," he ordered, and when Jim pulled the ice pack away, Blair had to groan. Jim's face looked awful. His eyes, nose and lips were swollen, and there were several cuts across him. Blair sighed, shaking his head, before picking up a wet cloth and wiping away the blood. 

"You should see the other guy," Jim offered dryly. 

"I _have_ seen the other guy," Blair replied. Then he stared at Jim, not quite sure what to do first. Thinking /one bite at a time,/ Blair started with Jim's left temple. 

They were disturbed by a voice at the door. "Do we need to go to the emergency room?" Didion asked, his hands braced against the doorframe to hold him steady. 

"No," Blair answered. 

"We'll try again tomorrow," Jim added with a growl. 

Didion only nodded as he turned to leave. Blair heard him take a few heavy steps before the deafening sound of him crashing in the hall reached his ears. "Damn it," Blair mumbled, throwing down the wet towel before leaving Jim. He walked into the hallway and saw Didion, face-first on the floor. Sebastian had heard him fall, too, and he was slowly moving closer. A side of his face was already dark red, and Blair knew it would be black and purple tomorrow morning. Without a word, the two of them grappled with Didion's bulk. Only when the man finally came to were they able to assist him into their bedroom. Didion collapsed on the bed, and Sebastian sat down beside him. For a moment Sebastian remained still, his thumb and forefinger pinching the bridge of his nose in defeated frustration. 

"Do you need any help?" Blair asked calmly. 

"No," Sebastian answered, his hands falling into his lap. "Didion and I've been stranded by ourselves for so long, I don't know if we'd even know what to do with help." 

" _That,_ " Blair said sharply, "is _your_ main problem." 

As he started to go, Sebastian called out to him, "Blair . . . I'm . . . I'm sorry." 

"No," Blair shot back, his anger cresting as his voice echoed harshly in the room. "I don't think there's anyone in the whole fucking world who can forgive you for what you did to us." Then he added with an vicious tone. "I know I never will." 

The look in Sebastian and Didion's eyes told him that his words had cut and hurt them more than anything Jim's fists could have ever done. With that, Blair turned on his heels and retreated from the room. 

* * *

Pulling his coat tighter around his neck, Blair glanced up into the evening sky, observing how the rain fell like blades through the orange glare of the halogen street lights. He blinked as the rainwater struck his face, then with a grimace watched as Jim and Didion examined the sidewalk across the street. This late at night, the downtown streets were frighteningly empty. No cars. No people. Just monstrous skyscrapers lining Peachtree Street like a row of metal corn, leaving them to be nothing but ants pinching the muck. A bone-racking shiver jarred Blair's body, and he huffed in frustration. 

Standing beside him, Sebastian turned his head slightly, his eyebrow arched. The bruise Jim had planted on the side of Sebastian's face seemed like a dark hole in the mix of harsh electric light and damp shadow. 

Blair shrugged both of his shoulders, as if to roll off the chill, then he mumbled. "I can't believe of all times to go somewhere warm, I end up here in winter. The weather's the exact same." 

Sebastian huffed a soft laugh through his nose, then rubbed his fingers down his black goatee. "Funny how Cascade is so far north but we have the same winters." They remained in an awkward silence for a moment longer before Sebastian said, "I'm sorry." 

"I don't want to talk about it right now." 

"But we should." 

"No," Blair threw back sharply. "Words to you are just paint. You take whatever color you want and you draw whatever you like. I'm through dealing with your words." He took a deep breath. "You want another chance? Then you need to show me something. This time I'm judging you by your actions." 

Rebuffed, Sebastian only nodded before looking down at his feet to study the tiny splashes against the sidewalk. 

Suddenly, from the pits of their stomachs, they felt a low rumbling that vibrated deep inside them. Blair shifted his vision to glance at Sebastian, and he saw the other man staring at him, his eyes wide with apprehension. Then Blair saw the point of Sebastian's adam's apple rise slightly in the throat as he swallowed. Very slowly, like Oriental dancers, they pivoted on the balls of their feet to look behind them. 

In the sheet of glass behind them, they saw their reflections standing side by side on the sidewalk. The rain ran down the glass in trickling rivulets. 

A peal of lightning flashed over their heads, and in that instance, they saw through the glass the black animal form, the yellow eyes gleaming like amber, before the light disappeared along with the silhouette. The growl returned, and both men felt their guts clench as they saw the dog's snout slowly press against the glass, this lips snarling back to reveal the glint of teeth. 

Bolting, both Blair and Sebastian ran into the street. "Jim!" Blair shouted. "Jim!" 

Sebastian grabbed Blair's arm. "They aren't here." 

"What!" Blair spun around several times, hunting for his partner, but they were alone. "Where'd they go?!" 

"This is a dream, Blair!" Sebastian answered. "It's just a dream." 

Blair glanced up at the sky. There seemed to be more skyscrapers now, ugly ones that rose like spears, and swirls of an inky blackness mixed with the hazy orange sky to form a gaudy pattern in the sky. The streets were unnaturally empty, and the only sounds he could hear were the hiss of the wind, the splatter of rain on wet asphalt, and the rumbling sounds of beastly growls coming from all directions. 

"What do we do?" Blair asked. 

"Wake up." 

"Do what?" 

"Wake up." 

Blair began to slap his face. "Wake up wake up wake up," he mumbled in a panic. "Why am I not waking up?" 

Then he froze. 

He saw movement on the sides of the skyscrapers. There, in the shadows that lined the windows and cornerstones. The black shadow began to dip, then slide downward with an oily motion. The weird oil gathered at the base of the build, growing thicker and thicker until a body began to take shape. At first Blair thought it might be a man until a flash of lightning betrayed the white of teeth. Immediately both men stepped back. The dog-beast rose up on its hind legs, the teeth spread back like a menacing laugh, and Blair stood stock still, entranced. 

The rapid fire of animal barks shot out like machine gun bullets directly behind him, and both men turned so sharply in fear that they slipped on the wet asphalt, sliding and twisting onto their knees to catch the last glimpse of a swarm of dogs falling on top of them. 

* * *

Blair shot up immediately in bed, throwing the covers off his chest. His hurried breath filled the room with gasping before he was able to make out the details of the penthouse room. Looking over his shoulder, he saw Jim there, lying on his side, deeply cloaked in sleep. Blair rubbed his face as his beating heart throbbed in his chest. 

"Tea," he said. "I need tea." 

In the darkness, he slipped quietly into the hallway, then down the stairs. Blair fumbled for the light switch in the kitchen, covering his eyes while he waited for them to adjust to the brightness. Blinking several times as he grew accustomed to the fluorescence, he began opening and closing cabinets, searching for a coffee mug. Finally he spotted them. Still half-asleep, he poured water into the cup, then slid it into the microwave to heat. While he stood there, leaning against the counter, he heard someone descend the stairs clumsily. Strangely, he didn't need to turn around to see who it was. He just _knew_ it was Sebastian -- perhaps some remnant of that odd connection they had shared just after their trance state. 

Wearing a tee shirt and boxer shorts, Sebastian squinted in the bright light, and Blair could easily see how swollen his left eye had become, and the purple bruise there. The dark-haired man opened the refrigerator and poured himself a tall glass of milk. "Did you find the chamomile tea?" he asked. 

"Yeah," Blair answered. 

"Good. I ordered that for you." 

"Thanks." 

"I figured the both of us wouldn't be getting much sleep." He drank from his glass, then mumbled, "Sucks, don't it?" 

"You had a nightmare, too?" 

Sebastian shrugged his shoulders. "I don't normally. Hell, I've had so many of them over the past two years that now whenever I even dream of a lap dog I automatically wake up." 

"Why is it I didn't have nightmares when Nic was around?" 

"Who's Nic?" 

"He was the one who took Collin." 

Again, Sebastian shrugged his shoulders. "Can't really tell you. Maybe your subconscious can only handle so much fear. I don't really know. Besides, I don't think you're supposed to stick around after you have one." 

"What else am I supposed to do?" Blair snapped. 

"Run like hell." Sebastian set his glass of milk down on the counter, leaned back against the kitchen counter and stared at the floor. The tattoo on his neck, of the dark black spider with unnaturally thin, angled legs seemed to stand out even more on his pale skin tonight, and Blair glanced down to see the lower portions of the wisteria tattoo he wore on his right arm. He remembered that night two months ago in Cascade, or rather, that morning after they had experimented with a shamanic trance. The two of them had woken up, arm in arm, flesh rubbing against hungry flesh. He had seen then all of Sebastian's normally hidden tattoos, and felt in his heart some of the desperation in his friend's soul. 

Blair sighed. /Yes, he was a friend then./ 

"I wonder why it's always dogs," Sebastian whispered, more to himself than to Blair. 

"Jungian archetype, perhaps?" 

"I guess. Pack animals. That would certainly describe the Order." Sebastian took a sip of milk, then he said, "I wonder why it's not wolves. Wolves are more typically the dangerous pack animals, especially for Europeans." 

Blair scratched the back of his neck. "But not for Native American cultures. The wolf is more of a symbol of the teacher." 

"We aren't exactly Cherokee," Sebastian said. 

"No, but Europeans have been living here for four hundred years. I'm sure our community gestalt patterns have altered to adapt with the indigenous populations." 

The microwave chimed, and Blair settled into the comfortable motions of stirring honey into the hot water, then dropping in a bag of tea. He noticed a tall figure slowly moving down the stairs, taking each step one at a time while leaning against the banister for support. Recognizing Didion, Blair returned to steeping his tea. Didion waited for a moment at the fringe of the kitchen light, waiting for his eyes to get used to the change. Blair could easily see from where he was standing all the cuts and bruises on his face, but now that Didion was only wearing boxer shorts, he could also see the dark bruised splotches on his hard, muscled chest and abdomen. 

Didion ignored Blair as he moved closer to Sebastian. The assassin set down a small orange plastic bottle on the counter and focused on his lover. "You all right?" he asked. 

Sebastian shrugged. "Just another dream." 

"You haven't had one of those in a while." 

"No," Sebastian replied, leaning against Didion's side and laying his head on his shoulder. "I just stopped telling you about them." 

Didion only nodded, and his fingers toyed with his lover's soft black hair. 

Blair wondered how long his own over-protective sentinel would allow Didion and Sebastian to be around him without his presence, and like clock-work, Blair heard him coming down the stairs. Unlike Didion, Jim walked straight into the kitchen even though he was blinded by the light. "You okay?" he mumbled, blinking. 

Blair wrapped his tea bag around a spoon, squeezing out the last drops of tea with his fingers, before throwing the bag away in the trash. "I'm fine. Just had another visit from my favorite breed of dog." 

Jim's eyes shot over to Sebastian. "You, too?" 

"Yes," he answered before wrapping his arms around Didion's waist. The agent pulled him close, his hands on his shoulder blades to keep him safe. Didion's eyes were shut tight, stroking Sebastian's back to comfort him. 

After a few minutes, Didion said, "Jim, I . . . I guess you and I are never going to be friends." Jim snorted, but Didion continued. "I don't even know if we'll ever stop being enemies. But I hope you realize what's at stake here. I . . ." His voice grew weak and vulnerable. "I don't want to lose Bass. And I'm sure you don't want anything to happen to Blair. We have to work together on this or everything is lost. So, please . . . until we can get to a safe place . . . can we just call a truce?" 

Jim stared at Didion hard, and when he felt Blair's hand on his smooth chest, just above his heart, he looked down to see Blair's dark blue eyes imploring with him. "Fine," Jim whispered. "A truce." 

"Thank you." Didion broke his embrace with Sebastian to reach into the cabinet above him for a glass tumbler. He filled it with water from the sink, then opened the orange plastic bottle that he had carried with him. He took two small capsules, then swallowed them with the help of the water. After they had gone down, he turned to Sebastian and handed him one pill. "I don't think you'll need two." 

Sebastian didn't reply as he took the pill from Didion's hand and swallowed it with a gulp of milk. "Come on," Didion tugged gently on his lover's shoulders. "Let's go back to bed." As he started to leave, he added, "Jim, I know you aren't going to trust me on this, but I'm going to tell you anyway." He set the bottle down within reach of the sentinel. "The Army developed this stuff to reduce the swelling after a fight. It's a way for us to keep our cover after getting hurt, and they don't mess with our senses. I'd take two pills, if I were you. But, like I said, I don't expect you to believe that this isn't a trick. Either way, I just thought I'd offer." 

With his hand at Sebastian's back, the two of them retreated upstairs. 

In silence, Blair reached out for the plastic bottle and held it out to Jim. 

"What?" 

"Take them," he said firmly. 

"I don't want to." 

"Jim, you look like Rocky Balboa . . . after the fight . . . take them." When Jim still hadn't accepted the bottle, Blair added, "We just saw them take these pills, so they won't kill you." After a few more tense moments, Blair growled, "Fine, _I'll_ take one." 

Jim took the bottle from him. "You weren't even hit." 

"Doesn't matter, man. I doing it to make a point." He reached out for the bottle in Jim's hand. 

Jim held up his arm to keep Blair from the pills. "All right, Chief," he mumbled. He opened the refrigerator and took out a jug of orange juice. "I'll take the damn things." 

* * *

Once upstairs, Jim lay back on the bed, his hands behind his head as he watched Blair shift around the room a few times. He focused on the long curls as they spilled over Blair's shoulder and hung like smoke around his eyes. In the amber lamplight, his hair sparkled with copper highlights. At last Jim groaned and asked, "What is it, Chief?" 

Blair looked up at him with haunted eyes and he said, "Jim . . . this thing about Lee Whitmore . . . and how you didn't . . . I don't even know how to say I'm sorry." 

Despite the pain in his face, Jim couldn't resist the warm smile that spread as he felt the love rush through his chest. "Blair," he offered tenderly, "come here." When Blair still remained standing at the side of the bed, Jim reached out his hand and said again, "Blair? Come over here." 

Blair sat down on the bed, his back to Jim. Still smiling, Jim eased closer to him until he could place his hand on Blair's shoulder. "It doesn't matter," he said softly. "It doesn't matter." 

"Jim, I was so angry. I like hated you so much . . . and now I . . . I feel like such a fool." 

"Chief, there's only one thing that matters to me. After all this happened, I . . . I stopped trusting _myself_. You mean the world to me and when I thought that I might have hurt you without any reason, I just . . . I couldn't forgive myself." He pulled Blair's chin to face him, and he hated that his lips were too bruised and sore to kiss his guide with the ardor and passion he was feeling in his veins. He kissed him with the barest brush of lips. "I love you, Chief." He combed Blair's hair back with his fingers. "And right now, the thought that you took me back . . . that you loved me so much that you _forgave_ me . . . I can't begin to tell you how much that means to me." 

Blair pulled in his breath along with his courage, and finally met Jim's crystal-blue eyes. He saw how wet they were with unspilled tears and overwhelming emotion and something warm and strong filled his heart. "Oh, Jim," was all he could mumble as he kissed Jim back, wrapping his arms around his sentinel's strong, bare chest. "I love you." 

With one last smile, Jim winked at him. "Come on, Chief. Let's try to get some sleep. I have a feeling we have a lot of long days ahead of us." 

That night, they slept with each other as they had so many months ago, melted and formed against each other's curves and shapes, without any impediments. 

* * *

Wednesday, December 2, 1998  
Atlanta, Georgia 

In Piedmont Hospital, Collin woke early. He rolled over onto his side and stared at his mother who lay asleep in the chair. He frowned, partly from guilt that he had brought even more worry and frustration to her. /This is really starting to become a habit,/ he said to himself. /I'm turning her life into a bad Sally Field movie./ He couldn't help but notice the silver strands of hair, mixed with her auburn, and the sharpening lines at her eyes, across her forehead, and around her mouth. She was getting older, and he had to admit that he was, too. It was hard thing for him to think about, this change, this withering of selves that both of them seemed to be witnessing. He was no longer a young man. /I beg your pardon,/ he bit back quickly, then frowned again. /Yes, Collin, you are no longer the circuit boy . . . Circuit boy? When were you ever one of those?/ 

That made him sigh out loud. /Oi vay, I'm arguing with myself./ 

He turned onto his opposite side and stared out the window. Already, the sky was turning pink, and even though it was now December, he could hear the chirps of morning birds. Still, the thoughts of age and how he was changing came to him. 

/Brian's changed./ 

Collin rolled his eyes in spite of himself. 

/He looks tired./ 

/Well, he should. Son of a bitch . . . / 

/Are you always going to hate him?/ 

Unable to answer, Collin could only feel the sore edges in his chest where the heaviness lay. Brian had been here. But the only thing on his mind was his job. Nothing about Collin. No entreaties. No pleading. No soft-spoken requests for forgiveness. Just professionalism with hard edges and sharp sides. 

/I guess a part of me will always hate him./ 

/And I guess a part of me will always be waiting for him to come back./ 

* * *

Brian Folsom stopped in the hallway just outside of Collin's hospital room, then ran both of his hands through his black hair. The night before, when he had learned that Collin was in Atlanta and that he had been released after a month of being held captive, Brian had felt nervous and anxious, but at least he had finally drifted off to uneasy dreams. But yesterday's confrontation had changed everything. Collin was hostile -- he did expect some of that. He wasn't expecting Sebastian, though, or those other two -- Jim and Blair. His stomach trembled when he thought of the anger and the judgment Sebastian had delivered over him. 

Last night, he couldn't sleep at all. 

He had a job, though, and nothing was going to stand in that way. Collin's capture and release was a high profile case, and Didion Sachs was involved. No one, especially the press, was going to let the incident with Collin slip away without answers. Too much of a remarkable human interest story. If Brian could publicly crack this case, and reveal Sachs' duplicity, then he felt he could at last be vindicated. Scott's death would not have been in vain and there would be some sort of redemption. 

Redemption. 

Would it be enough to redeem himself of what he had done to Collin two years ago? 

Taking a deep breath, Brian tried to calm himself. /There's no sense beating myself up for mistakes in the past./ He waited outside Collin's room and listened. He didn't hear voices, and that relieved him some. Brian knew that Collin's mother certainly wouldn't suffer his presence again. For some reason, part of him kept insisting, in his gut, that if he could just get Collin alone, he would be able to speak to him. 

/About what?/ 

Brian shook his head, running his left hand through his hair again. /I don't know! I just . . . / 

He couldn't even finish the sentence in his thoughts. 

The silence essentially told him nothing. He couldn't tell whether or not Collin's mother or grandmother were in the room. He knew, though, that there was only one way to handle this situation, and that was to confront it head on. Brian rolled back his shoulders and straightened his spine before stepping into the hospital room. 

The first thing he noticed was the shaft of morning light cutting through the blinds at the window. Then the silence fell upon him as if it had its own weight. The bed was not only empty, but it was also made, the sheets and blankets crisp and straight. Slowly, Brian came closer. There was no sign of Collin. 

He stood there for a moment as a harsh memory, unbidden, boiled up in his mind. Two years ago, after he had tried to tell Collin he was sorry and wanted so much to make the whole nightmare just go away, Brian had gone back to their farmhouse an hour outside of Atlanta to pick up a few more things. He had forced out all of his thoughts as he rummaged around the house, but when he had seen the bedroom, he froze. 

Collin had made the bed, and the uncreased sheets looked so abandoned and forlorn. 

Brian suddenly relived that iron-heavy sinking sensation of guilt and remorse in his stomach. His hand reached out to stroke the thin hospital blanket criss-crossed with slats of light. Once again, Collin was gone, out of his life. Sure, he could chase after him, but had he ever taken that first step over the past two years? 

And if he caught him, what would he even say? 

The sudden harsh latch of a door opening behind him caused Brian to spin around on his heels quickly. His eyes were wide and his lips parted in surprise when he registered Collin's shape stepping out of the bathroom. The image washed over him and Brian couldn't stop the emotions from welling up inside him. Collin had showered and washed his hair, and it hung in curving auburn waves past his shoulders. He had trimmed his beard to a soft stubble along his jaw, shaving the skin on his neck as well. New tortoise-shell glasses sparkled in the morning light. Taken by surprise, Collin's green eyes flashed. 

Neither of them could speak. 

Brian was lost in his memories. Years and years ago, when he was a student in college, he had watched Collin hanging out with his friends. He was too scared to approach him, still unsure about these feelings he was experiencing but so envious of Collin's easy acceptance of his desires. Then, Collin had had long hair that hung past his shoulders, but when Brian had met him again, in Atlanta, after graduating, Collin had cut his hair brutally short. It was as if the old Collin, the one Brian had fallen in love with almost ten years ago, had returned. He looked so different than he had yesterday, now that he was standing and dressed in a crisp khakis, a yellow button-down shirt and a thick green sweater. A shaky sensation took over, and Brian panicked, resorting to his firm, emotionless detective-persona for some sense of self-control. "Good, I thought you had left," his detective-firm voice spoke. "I still have a number of questions to ask." 

Collin's green eyes narrowed as his lips curled into a slight snarl. Without speaking, he forced his way past Brian, knocking shoulders as they passed. 

In seconds, Brian realized his gaffe and instantly regretted it with closed eyes. There had been a moment, however short, when he really could have spoken to Collin, and he had blown it. He covered his eyes with one hand before turning back. 

Collin threw two bags on the bed, dumping the contents. Mostly receipts and packaging fell out. Barely containing his anger, Collin snatched up the receipts and tore them into tiny shreds before tossing them in the small garbage can beside the bed. 

Brian recognized it as nervous energy. "I . . . I thought you had left already," he tried. 

Collin stopped in mid tear, staring at him over the rim of his glasses. "Not yet," he finally said. 

"You . . . uhm . . . look nice." 

"Thank you," Collin said with a tone of false tolerance. 

"Where . . . where did the clothes come from?" 

"Are these the kinds of questions you have to ask?" 

Brian's shoulder's sagged, "Collin, please." 

"Fine," Collin said with a toss of the hand. "Never let it be said that _I_ questioned your detective prowess." He crumbled one of the bags as he answered, "My grandmother said she didn't want her grandson leaving this hospital looking like a hobo, so she went out to Phipps and probably made a nightmare of herself in front of half the clerks. Lord only knows how many people she terrorized into tracking down the prescription for these glasses." Grabbing the second bag, he flipped it upside down. An electric razor, toothbrush, bottles of shampoo and cologne fell out. 

Brian tried not to smile at the anxiety in Collin as he collected each item and stuffed it back into the same sack. "Where is everyone?" 

"They're eating breakfast downstairs while I got dressed. Said they'd be back in an hour so we can leave." 

"Oh. . . . where are you staying?" 

"Don't worry about it." 

"What?" 

"I said, don't worry about it." 

Taking a deep breath, Brian added, "Look, Col, I know this is awkward, but we have to work together on this." 

"Why?" 

"Because it's important to me." 

"Oh," Collin threw down the bag, "I see. It's _important_ to you. Well, by all means, let me drop everything so I can help you." 

"Jesus, I can't believe you're acting like this." 

"I beg your pardon." Collin's voice came out cold and hard. "Just how do you expect me to act? All happy and excited that you are here to save the day, completely overlooking you fucking up my life? Damn, you really haven't changed, have you? You're just as self-centered and heartless as you were two years ago." 

Brian closed his eyes and let the insult penetrate before going on. "So, I guess this means you're on Didion's side now." 

"I wouldn't go that far." 

"So you don't want to help me finally get Didion this time." 

"Look, Bri --" Collin stopped for a second, taken by surprise that he used Brian's nickname. " _Brian_." He emphasized. "I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt that Didion didn't have anything to do with me getting kidnapped." 

"You mean he's not involved." 

"He may be involved, but not directly." 

"So you won't help me, even if it may work toward finally nailing this guy?" 

"Why are you so worked up about this?" 

"I want to see Didion taken down." 

"Because he slept with you and then dumped you? Is that it?" 

"No!" 

"Then what?" 

"Look, Col. Didion only slept with me to find out if I really was gay \--" 

"So I guess I'm just a potted plant." 

Brian threw up his hands. "Damn it. I don't want to talk about that right now." "And I should be surprised? You didn't want to talk about it then and you don't want to talk about it now. Now do you see why I haven't come back to Atlanta in two years? Jesus, I can't think of a more Chernobyl like reason to stay out of a city." 

"Damnit, is Didion involved, even indirectly, or not?" 

"He must be because they kept asking me about him." 

"Then I want to know everything." 

"Why bother, Brian? I was there in that parking garage off Dobbs when I saw Didion come rushing down the stairs holding a rifle. That was the same afternoon that man was shot. And what good did that do? Huh? The case was still closed. The same is going to happen with me, so why are you even bothering? Only a blithering idiot would take this case." 

"I _asked_ for this case." 

"Well, then let me say it slowly this time," Collin cocked his head slightly, "because I forgot who I was talking to. Only a _blithering idiot_ would take this case." 

"Damnit, Collin, if you won't do it for us then do it for Scott!" 

"Excuse me?" 

"Didion sent threatening letters to Scott, making him believe they were coming from someone on the police force. He made Scott believe that unless he quit the force, he was going to kill me. And you know how Scott was. Damnit, the force was his life and he couldn't just give that up. He totally lost it and he killed himself in the end. Don't you remember?" 

"Trust me. I've gone through that same scenario with Didion twice." 

"Then why won't you do it for Scott?" 

"For Scott? The man you fell in love with just days after Didion broke us up?" 

Before Brian could think, he answered, "Yes." 

"I see. So let me get this straight. You're only jacked up about this because Didion drove Scott to kill himself? Is that it?" 

"Yes." 

"So again, after everything, the only thing you still care about is Scott?" 

In that instance, Brian realized he had made a mistake, and he didn't know the words to try to convince Collin otherwise. He felt like Wile E. Coyote after passing the edge of the cliff, just waiting for gravity to take its turn on the stage. 

Collin didn't give him a chance. "Get out." "But Collin, wait!" 

"I said, get out!" Collin pointed to the door. 

"Not until you hear me out." 

"You've said more than enough. Trust me. Get the hell out of here." 

"Collin, please!" 

"Enough." He drew a line in the air. "You have to be this tall to ride this ride, now get the hell out!" 

* * *

Blair was the first person off the elevator, not because of his past experiences with them, but because the air among the four of them still felt strained and loaded, the bow-strings of their pent-up energies quivering from the tension. Their breakfast in the penthouse had been a silent one, but even in silence, Blair had developed one of those headaches he usually got when listening to professors bicker during seminars. He wanted to blame the residual feelings of jet-lag, but he knew it had more to do with how angry he felt at both Didion and Sebastian. They had used them both, manipulating their good nature and trust like puppet strings. Blair felt embarrassed and ashamed at being played the fool, caught with his intellectual pants down, and at the same time, vulnerable and abashed around them like an April Fools tricked child. Also, some part of him knew he should feel somewhat guilty about how he and Jim had so aggressively punched them last night, taking out their instant rage with fists. That kind of physical confrontation was so unlike him. His mother would have been haranguing him right now if she knew, badgering him to meditate and burn sage. He knew he should be concerned about karma, but at that moment, all he could feel was the righteous pride, that he had taken the choice to smite his enemy and not turn the other cheek. His knuckles still ached from punching Didion, but that pain felt good and honest. 

Jim hovered close, not willing to let Didion or Sebastian come near him, and Blair appreciated that behavior in his sentinel. He wanted Jim close, wanted to be able to reach out at any time and touch him. When he came to Atlanta, Blair thought of Didion and Sebastian as two men who needed their help, and who were willing to assist them, in order to stop a common enemy. This morning, Blair wasn't so sure who was the enemy, and now, exposed as they were between the Order and the Project, he needed to know that Jim stood close by, to both protect and be protected. 

In a way, needing Jim felt weak, and he wanted to feel strong. He wanted to be tempered iron and fire, and that need fueled his anger at Sebastian and Didion even more. 

/Fuck karma./ 

Turning the corner, Blair recognized Brian Folsom leaning against the wall, his hands shoved into the pockets of his navy blue slacks, staring at the floor. He didn't seem to notice the nurses, doctors and patients who milled past him. Blair couldn't help but stop and stare at the man. The Atlanta detective seemed so broken and haunted, searching for something inside himself, leafing through memories like pages in a soiled, dampness-warped scrapbook. For most of this year, Blair had known of Brian through Collin's eyes -- the bitterness and the betrayal. His only conception of the man was as Collin's ex -- a figureboard cut-out in a black cape and snarling mustache. But now, looking at him in the flesh, he seemed suddenly deeper, and Blair wondered if it had more to do with last night's revelation. Didion had so successfully pit Blair and Jim against each other, not just lovers, but a sentinel and his guide. That took an amazing amount of conscious skill, cunning, and malice. What chance did Collin and Brian stand against his spider-silk maneuverings? 

Didion had destroyed them. Sniffed out their weakness and rent them apart. A toddler's playthings had a better chance of defending themselves. 

Blair felt Jim's hand on his shoulder, and he turned to see the expression in Jim's eyes -- sympathetic, sorrowful. Moving closer, Blair approached Folsom. The detective didn't seem to realize Blair's presence until he felt Blair's hand on his arm. "You okay, man?" Blair asked. 

Responding to the gentle tone of Blair's voice, Brian looked up. For a brief moment, he let the unexpected kindness affect him, the pools of his eyes reflecting something back, before the facade of strength and sterility descending across his turquoise eyes and the stern detective returned. "Yeah, I'm fine. Did y'all sleep well?" He directed the question at Jim as well. 

Jim nodded, and as he did, Folsom noticed the change in skin color -- the yellowish-green shadows across his face. He stood up straight, away from the wall, and peered closer at Jim. "What happened to your face, Ellison?" 

Gingerly, Jim ran his fingertips across his cheeks. With his sentinel senses, he could certainly tell that underneath the altered skin color and the reduced swelling lay bruised flesh, but this morning, in the penthouse, it looked passable. He glanced behind him to check out Didion when he realized it -- Didion was wearing a light layer of makeup to conceal last night's brutal fight. He sniffed the air, but there was no scent. Jim pulled his hand away from his jaw and said, "Nothing." 

Brian eyed Didion hard, but he didn't say a word, his lips tightened into a straight line. Sebastian and Didion closed the gap, all four of them standing around Folsom. "Is Collin inside?" Sebastian asked, hooking his thumb towards the open door. 

"Yeah." Then he thought back to the altercation he had just had with his ex-lover, all that tightly-wound animosity, as well as Collin's other family members who had just joined him, and he said, "Why don't you go inside and see him." 

"I believe I will." Sebastian turned to walk into the room, and as he did, he had to immediately step back to avoid running into a dark-haired figure in the doorway. 

"I thought that was your voice," the woman said, and Sebastian took another step back in shock. Standing before him, the middle-aged woman nervously reached up to brush a strand of her long salt-and-pepper hair behind her ear. She stepped into the hallway, and Blair observed her tapestry-like sports-coat, her sleek blue jeans, and her green turtleneck. 

"Mom?" Sebastian whispered. 

"Son." She smiled, but there were tears in her eyes. "I almost didn't believe Georgie when she told me you were here. I had to drive up here to see it for myself." 

Didion quickly spun around, reaching into his trenchcoat for his cell-phone and punching in numbers. Jim watched him storm down the hall with the cell-phone to his ear, and he immediately dialed up his hearing to eavesdrop. 

Blair, though, was held spellbound to Sebastian's interaction with his mother. Very slowly, the shock wore off, and the man enveloped his mother in his arms. "Mom," he sighed as he held her close. 

"I thought I'd never see you again," she managed to say with a strained voice. 

"I . . . I can't put you in danger." 

"I don't care. I want to know my son." 

"I'm all right. Didion takes good care of me." 

She pulled back just enough to glare down the hallway towards the tall blond in the distance, pacing the waiting room with his cell-phone. "He keeps you from me." 

"There are others who keep us apart, Mom, and I don't want these people anywhere near you." 

"Who are they? Why won't you tell me?" 

"They are underworld mafia and I don't want you near them. You shouldn't be here." 

"Underworld," she said with a knowing, ominous tone. "Underworld, maybe. Mafia I'm not so sure." She looked at Jim and Blair. "Who are these two?" 

"They're friends of mine." Then Sebastian realized what he had said, and he glanced down at the floor suddenly, knowing it was now false. "Friends of Collin's," he corrected. "They're here to help." 

She broke away from Sebastian's embrace to hold out her hand to Blair. "I'm Doreen Sanders," she said. 

"Blair Sandburg." 

Jim reached out his hand to her. "Jim Ellison." 

After shaking Jim's hand, she motioned to Brian. "Do you know Brian Folsom?" 

"Yes," Jim answered. "We met yesterday." "I'm not sure what I think of him being here." 

Folsom interrupted, "I'm here to do a job, Ms. Sanders." 

"Brian, I know there are at least a hundred police officers in this city who can handle this. Surely you realize your presence is upsetting Collin. Besides, shouldn't this be a matter for the FBI? I mean, Collin was kidnapped across state lines." 

Folsom turned his light blue eyes at Jim. "Seems they aren't interested," he said with a growl. 

Jim looked away, not sure how to answer. Blair could tell by Jim's reaction that his sentinel suddenly felt as though he was colluding in Didion's schemes and that that was eating him up inside. 

Doreen didn't given either of them time to dwell on it, though. "Why are you interested, Brian?" she asked. 

He could only stare at her. 

"I know your superiors would not have assigned this to you. You're too close to the case. I'm assuming you had to fight for it. And at the same time, if the FBI isn't investigating what happened to Collin, I would guess there's the same pressure on the police not to get involved. Are you even working on this officially?" She watched as Brian shifted uncomfortably on his feet. Getting the answer she wanted, she directed her focus on Jim. "Are you like Didion?" she asked. 

"I beg your pardon?" 

"Are you keeping . . ." she motioned towards Blair. 

"Blair," the guide whispered, reminding her. "Blair Sandburg." 

"Yes, I'm sorry. Are you keeping Blair Sandburg from his family?" 

"Oh. No, ma'am. I'm a detective." He reached into his coat pocket to pull out his badge. "With the Cascade P.D." 

She read his badge and said, "Washington, huh? Are you here investigating what happened to Collin?" 

"In a manner of speaking." 

"In a manner of speaking," she repeated the words. "And what does that mean?" 

Sebastian interrupted. "Mom, don't put Jim and Blair on the spot. You know they can't talk about it." 

"But I thought he just said he wasn't like Didion," she countered. "Well? Are you involved with him or not?" 

"We're working with him," Jim answered, "but I'm not a member of Didion's . . . organization. I'm a detective with the Cascade P.D., and that's all that I am." 

Doreen remained silent for a moment, studying Jim, letting the words sink in, before she asked, "Bass, if Jim can be a police officer and live in one city with his family, why can't Didion?" 

Sebastian's dark eyes searched Jim's, and in that moment, Blair knew that that kind of existence was exactly what Sebastian had dreamed and hoped about. Just as suddenly as that dream flared in Sebastian's eyes, so too did the darkness of reality descend. For a brief second, Sebastian dropped his gaze to the floor before whispering, "It's not that simple." 

"Nothing is ever simple, Bass, and I wish you would respect me enough to tell me what's going on." 

"I can't, Mom. And you know that." 

"Because it's classified," she added with defeat. "Why do we always have to end our conversations with that word?" 

At that moment, a nurse appeared, pushing a wheelchair in front of her. "Excuse me," she said politely, waiting for Doreen and Sebastian to move away from the door. Watching her slip inside the room, Jim realized that he had been distracted from Didion's conversation. He turned towards the agent, just as Didion flipped the cell-phone closed and moved to join them. Jim started to say something when Doreen stepped around him, placing herself between them. 

"Didion," she said firmly. 

Didion held out his jacket to return the cell-phone to his inside pocket, avoiding her eyes. "Doreen." 

"I asked you once to never let anything happen to my son." 

"I've protected him," he said. 

"Have you protected the body or the mind?" Her eyebrow arched. 

Didion immediately knew what she meant, and he rared back as if she had burned him, pulling in his breath. "I love him, Doreen," he answered her. 

"He's not the same as he was when he left two years ago." 

"Neither am I." 

"I don't like it." 

"Neither do I," he replied with a strained whisper. 

"Then make it stop." 

"I'm trying." 

"I want to see him more. You've kept him away from his family for over two years." 

"Give us a little more time, Doreen. We're finally making progress." 

"Progress against this . . . underworld?" 

"Yes. I promise you, one day he'll be safe. So will you." 

"I'll hold you to that promise, Didion." 

"Yes ma'am." 

A few moments later, the nurse appeared again, pushing a wheelchair with Collin in it. The young man sat calmly, his hands in his lap, and Blair raised his eyebrows in surprise when he saw that his friend had trimmed his beard and washed his hair, and the new glasses, obviously more expensive than the ones he wore in Cascade, brought out his green eyes. Normally, Blair had seen him wearing worn jeans and threadbare flannel shirts. He was pleased to see his roommate wearing the thick cable-knit sweater with a rich green and purple diamond pattern and the soft khaki slacks. 

"Hey man," Blair said, slipping closer to him. "You're looking great!" 

Collin gave him a wry grin. "How was last night?" 

Blair looked at Jim, and Jim looked at Blair. "I'll tell you later," Blair answered. 

"I take it it's something I'd like to hear." 

This time Blair smiled. "You? Oh yeah. This is like so up your alley." 

Sensing Sebastian's discomfort, Collin glanced over his shoulder to speak to his cousin. "I see Aunt Doreen found you." 

"You called her, didn't you?" Sebastian asked. 

"I did." Marjorie MacPherson stepped out of Collin's hospital room, carrying several coats. She handed one to Doreen, then dropped Collin's in his lap. "I thought she'd want to know." 

The nurse pushed Collin towards the elevator, and when he spotted Didion, his eyes narrowed. 

"Collin," Didion said softly as a polite gesture. 

"I see that death thing didn't take." 

"Not this time." 

"So what's on the agenda this time? More faked deaths? More exploding mansions?" The nurse pushed him past Didion, and Blair followed alongside him. "Slimy piece of manipulative white trash. He's almost an excuse to step on the first gelatinous blob that ever flopped out of the primordial soup." Then Collin peered up at Blair. "I'm sorry. Did I say that out loud?" 

Blair gently popped him on the back of the head. "I see you're feeling better." 

"Oh yeah. I'm back on my feet and ready to start handing out trouble." Then he remembered the wheelchair. "Well, so to speak." 

Jim watched the others file past Didion, waiting for his chance to ask about that last phone call. Before he came closer, though, he noticed Brian Folsom hanging back to stand near Jim. He thought for a moment about what would cause the detective to suddenly be somewhat bashful around them. "I see you're putting some distance between you and Collin," Jim commented. 

Folsom only nodded. 

"Do you love him?" 

Jim's question caught him off-guard. "Huh?" 

"Do you still love him?" 

Folsom shrugged his shoulders, as if trying to brush the question off. "We were together for a long time. Of course I still have feelings for him." 

"That didn't exactly answer my question." 

Folsom motioned towards the others as they waited in front of the elevator. "Come on," he said, avoiding the question altogether. "Let's go." 

Jim watched Brian slowly move closer to the group waiting by the elevator, his approach haggard, like a man on the way to his execution. He frowned slightly, feeling a great deal of empathy for the detective, seeing what could have been his future with Blair. There had always been that chance that Blair would have never forgiven him for his mistake with Lee Whitmore. Blair could right now be treating him just the way Collin was treating Brian. At least Jim knew he hadn't fallen from grace with Whitmore by his own free will; Didion had drugged him. Had he drugged Brian also? What sort of manipulation did the agent pull on them? His anger clicking back in place, Jim stepped closer to Didion, and as he did, he asked, "So what was up with the phone call?" 

"You didn't eavesdrop?" Didion asked, almost accusatory. 

"I got distracted. What was going on with the phone call?" 

Didion motion towards the group at the elevator. "I was calling to arrange a safe house for them." 

"You think they need one? 

" "Just a hunch." 

"What, just because Bass' mother is here?" 

"I don't know what you're talking about." 

"Don't," Jim warned him. "I saw the way you reacted when you saw her." 

Didion paused for a moment, considering. "Maybe I'm just nervous. I wanted to see what Collin's plans were going to be when they released him. If he went back to Cascade, I suspect he'll be safe. They wouldn't release him and then attack again. They would have just left him for dead days or weeks ago. Killing him would just turn him into a martyr to the four of us and we wouldn't stop until we killed them. I'm just . . . afraid that if they attack his mother, it'll throw Bass off-guard, and that will affect us all." 

"Then why not attack Blair's mom? Or my dad?" 

"I can't promise you that they won't." 

Ellison snatched at the lapels of Didion's trench coat and snarled, "Just what have you gotten us involved in?" 

Didion effectively released Jim's hold of his coat. "Get a grip on yourself." He brushed the wrinkles from the cloth. "The Order has never attacked a Project member's family before. They already know how protective hypersensitive soldiers can get, and that would only enrage us. Instead, they know to zero in on our guides. They've . . ." he said the last line softly, "they've seen how we tend to break down if our guides are killed." 

"So why the fear for Bass' mom?" 

"Just a hunch. If she's this close, it would be easy for them to take her down and upset Bass." 

Jim's concerns were still not completely set at ease, but the tight metallic ring of the elevator call bell distracted them. Both sentinels joined the rest of the group, filing into the large elevator for the ride down. 

Once inside, Didion turned to Doreen, thinking she would be the most receptive person in Collin and Bass' family. "Doreen," he began, "I want you to consider moving your family into a safe house, just for a little while." 

"A safe house?" she asked. 

"Wait," Collin interrupted. "Run that by us again." 

Didion tried not to let his exasperated sigh be heard. "I want you all to move into a safe house, at least for a few days until we can identify the location of the people who abducted Collin and neutralize them." 

"Are we in danger?" Marjorie MacPherson asked. "To be honest, I don't know. It's just a concern. I think it would be better to be safe than sorry. I can have your family placed in a safe house, with guards." 

"For how long?" Doreen asked. 

"I'm not sure." 

"Well I'm not sure if I'm prepared to stay away from my home for an undisclosed amount of time, Didion," Doreen replied. 

"The answer is an easy no," Collin interjected. "Didion has never done anything good for any of us and I for one sure as hell don't trust him." 

"Collin, this isn't a game. I would think that after what just happened to you that you for one would understand this now." 

"You have a lot of nerve to lecture me on game," Collin said coldly. 

"Where is this safe house?" Marjorie asked. 

Didion looked over at the nurse standing behind Collin's wheelchair. "We can discuss it when we're in private." 

The elevator door opened, and everyone waited for the nurse to push Collin out first before slipping out behind him. The group walked in silence towards the sliding glass doors at the back entrance of the hospital. "Where is your car at?" the nurse asked. 

"My car is just inside the parking garage," Marjorie answered. "I didn't know if Collin wanted to walk to the car or if he wanted to wait while I got it." 

Collin gracefully rose from the wheelchair, stretching his long, slender legs. "I've been sitting around for way too long. I'd just as soon walk." 

Marjorie smiled. "I figured as much. It's on the first level." She handed Collin his coat as the cold November wind bit into their skin. 

Even with the cold wind, Blair smiled up at the sunny sky. The two sensations were so incongruous to him, having spent so many winters in Cascade -- chill in the bones, but a warmth on the skin from sunlight. Standing next to him, Jim saw that happy smile on his guide, and he couldn't resist smiling himself. His hand instinctively rose to touch Blair's back, to feel his healthy heartbeat thumping through flesh and cloth. Watching Collin trying so hard to ignore Brian's presence, and watching Brian trying so hard to mask whatever feelings he harbored behind a steely professional facade, Jim offered up a quick thank you that he and Blair were for the moment safe and together. 

Stepping into the shadow of the parking garage, though, stripped away the sunlight, leaving only the cold. Blair unconsciously tightened his arms around his chest. Then he groaned, rolling his head around on his neck, when he heard Didion, Doreen and Collin return to their argument. "This is ridiculous," Didion began. "You need to be in a safe house." 

"I need," Collin turned on him, facing him in the middle of the street between the hospital and the parking garage, "to once and for all be assured that I'll never see you again." 

"You have no idea how old this tone of conversation is getting with you." 

Collin narrowed his eyes. "Try me." Then he turned his back on Didion, joining his mother as she waited under the eave of the parking garage. 

Didion followed after him, grumbling to Sebastian, "The shit I have to put up with." He caught up with Collin and spun him around a bit too forcefully. "Look!" he shouted, "I'm not finished with you." 

Jim noticed Brian's spine instantly stiffen and his shoulders arching back as they witnessed Didion's unexpected manhandling, and Brian took one step towards them before he saw the fire in Collin's eyes. 

Collin arched an eyebrow, prying Didion's arm away. "Well, that little piece of macho posturing was impressive. You do realize that I'm one of the few people who happen to know that that kind of aggressive confrontation is simply an attempt to overcome self-obsessed insecurities? And since I can only speculate on the nature of whatever shortcomings you feel you have, let me just cut to the chase and say that the next time you feel the need to prove yourself _to_ yourself, I'd suggest you choose a target who even remotely gives a damn." 

Marjorie shook her head. "I swear you get that from your grandmother." 

Didion didn't hear her. He poked his finger in Collin's face and replied, "For over two years, you've done nothing but bicker with me like some scorned wife, and I'm getting sick of it. If I had had a choice two years ago, I would have never come near Brian and that's the truth, so drop all this wounded nancy crap." 

"Oh, so just like that I'm just supposed to roll over and wag my tail and be so god-damned happy to see you? Well excuse the hell out of me if I'm not. And while we're at it, I for one really want to see you hold your breath until I do." 

"You know what? If you don't want to go to a safe house, then fine --" 

"Didion," Sebastian tried to interrupt. 

"-- You can just go off to where ever it is you want to stay and maybe light a candle to St. Jude for all I care and hope nothing happens to you. But can you make that decision for your aunt? Or your mother?" 

"Oh, you like emotional blackmail, don't you? You manipulative bastard. Yes, I have every intention of protecting my family. Why the hell do you think I'm telling you no? You, of all people? How fucking dare you just assume after all you've done to me and Brian, to Bass, hell, even Jim and Blair, that I'm supposed to just buy all this good-boy knight-in-shining-armor bullshit and follow along with whatever plan you have up your sleeve? You, Didion Sachs, are the worst thing that has ever happened to me, and if I were the last person standing on the Titanic and you had a spot in your lifeboat, I'd take my chances with the band." 

At that moment, the wind changed. 

Both Jim and Didion grew still, their eyes painted with a distant expression as their sense of smell took over, cataloging the dangerous tang in the air. They made eye-contact then, for just a moment, and the instant frisson between them doubled their sense of fear. Like well-oiled machines springing into action, both men snatched out their weapons, dialed up their hearing, and scanned the garage for heartbeats. As if they had been partners for years, they turned their backs to each other, pistols raised, slowly revolving around, prepared to react. Neither really cared to fathom the implications on how easily they fell into such a well-grooved partnership in just the split-second recognition of the tell-tale presence of the Order's poison. 

Brian reacted to their sudden martial stance by drawing his own weapon. "What's going on?" 

"Blair, get everyone down," Jim commanded. 

"Where are they?!" 

Jim motioned for them to get down, his concentration focusing on finding the other heartbeat in the garage. There were so many of them, and most of them were beating now at an incredible rate. 

"What's going on?" Collin asked. 

Suddenly, both Jim and Didion arrowed in on the unknown heartbeat. They aimed, their index fingers brushing against the trigger. A crescent of blond hair appeared from behind the side of a minivan. In an instant, they recognized the bundle of a child in the hands of a young woman, and they pulled their sights away, returning to scanning the garage for the Order. "Ma'am," Jim said, "get inside your car now and stay down." 

The young woman grew pale with fear as she saw their guns. She fumbled with her keys, shaking visibly, almost beginning to cry. "Don't hurt me," she begged. 

"We're with the police," Jim said automatically. "Just get inside your car, lock the doors and stay down." 

Collin could sense her fear as his own. "Jim, you're starting to scare everyone." 

"Get down," Didion interrupted. "All of you. This is not a game." 

The loud slam of the startled woman's door reverberated through the parking garage. 

"Do you really think they're here?" Sebastian asked as he moved closer to his mother to guard her. 

"Do you smell it, Jim?" Didion asked. 

"I smell that poison you handed to me in the car yesterday." 

"Poison?" Folsom asked. "What poison?" 

"Are they just trying to scare us?" Blair offered. 

"Well, y'all are the ones who are scaring us," Doreen said. She stepped away from the side of the car and in that moment, the metal on the door popped as if punctured. Everyone glanced down to see the ominous points of the curved metal throwing star. In the daylight, Jim could see the yellow glisten of poisoned oil on its blades, and the smell of it made him sick. 

"Down, now!" Jim shouted as both he and Didion aimed in the general direction of the throwing star's trajectory. Blair grabbed Collin's mother, and Sebastian pulled down Doreen, covering her with his body. They huddled as close to the opposite car as they could, hoping to shield themselves from another shot. 

Jim spotted the black-clothed shape first, hiding along the edge of the ramp leading to the second floor. He fired once, but the feline shape easily rolled out of the way and disappeared. "He's on the ramp!" 

Didion raced around to the side, running towards the ramp, his trench coat flapping loudly against his legs. 

"Who are these people?" Collin asked Blair. "Are these the same ones who attacked us back home?" 

"Yes," Blair shouted back. 

"Why do they want me?" 

"Back home?" Brian asked as he revolved around in one place, his gun drawn. "What's going on here?" 

"Folsom," Jim started, moving to catch up with Didion. "Stay and protect the others. Keep them down." 

Collin didn't hear them. He could only remember the look on Ian's face when Nic's bullets tore through his chest. He saw again the grimace of pain when Blair's leg was shot. And those days chained in darkness, like remembering nausea long past, hung heavily in his stomach as he recalled worrying about Ian and Blair, assuming they were dead, feeling the guilt like an iron drape across his shoulders. He saw his mother, huddling underneath Blair, and the way Blair seemed just as nervous and unsure. And there, beside him, were Sebastian and his aunt Doreen. 

/No./ 

He would not see this happen again. He would not let that kind of harm touch his family again. Slowly he rose. 

"Collin, what are you doing?" Blair yelled. 

Brian saw him stand. "Collin, stay down." 

"No. This isn't going to happen again." 

"What are you talking about?" 

"I'm not letting these people hurt the people I love again." 

"No one's going to get hurt," Brian tried to reassure him, placing his hand on his shoulder as he tried to push him back down to cover. 

Collin easily rolled his hand away with a shrug of his shoulder. He stepped away from the cars. 

"Collin!" Sebastian cried out. 

Jim, a few cars down now and edging closer towards the ramp, covering Didion as the man sprinted to the second floor, turned for a moment at the commotion, realizing then what was going on. "Collin! Stay down!" 

"No," Collin argued. "I'm not going to see this happen again." 

He moved out into the open. In a panic, Brian hurried towards him. "Collin, don't do this," he said, reaching out for him. 

"Go away, Brian. I know what I'm doing." 

"What you are doing is putting us all in danger. Now get down and let us do our jobs." 

Collin continued to step away from Brian, brushing the man's hand away. "This isn't about your job, Brian, so lay off." 

Upstairs, Didion spotted something black moving past his peripheral vision. Zeroing in on the shape and sight, he let his hearing go unnoticed, and he didn't know of the conflict occurring downstairs. He edged closer, watching the lithe form of what he judged to be a young man dressed only in black. Didion decided that he must be one of the Order's newest members, still young and inexperienced. That meant there was another one nearby. The Order would not have sent someone so young into the field without a mentor. He kept his eye on the young assassin -- he would take that one out first and be ready for surprises. 

Collin stepped out into the open air, between the garage and the hospital. Sunlight danced in his long auburn hair and the wind brushed it across his face. "If they want me," he said out loud, "I'll go. Just don't hurt anyone again." 

Brian glanced once at the others. "Get him," Sebastian urged. Folsom frowned in frustration, then darted out after him. Unaware to the events downstairs, Didion readied his weapon, waiting for the young assassin to make his move from behind a sedan. He dialed up his sense of sight, ready for the target. In seconds, the black-clothed killer sprouted to the side of the blue car, his hand on his hip and his attention directed over the metal railing towards the street below. Like a triggered crossbow, his arm snapped, flinging another dangerous throwing star. 

Didion squeezed his index finger. The gun jerked in his steady hand, and he watched unemotionally as the black cotton along the assassin's back, just below his left shoulder blade, burst with a minimal spray of blood. The killer's arms bent back slightly, his head curving towards the sky as if in a puzzled expression of surprise, before his knees melted and his weight slumped to the concrete. 

On the street, Brian reached out for Collin. Collin stared into his eyes just at the moment that something needle-thin and dark cut across Brian's forehead. He saw Brian tip his head back, as if hit by something. The throwing star glanced off the bone of his forehead, ricocheting towards Collin, striking the rim of his new glasses and slinging them to the asphalt at his feet. 

"What the hell?" 

Again, Brian reached out for him, but something was wrong. "Collin?" he whispered. 

* * *

Continued in part four.

Link to text version of part four:  



	4. Chapter 4

This story has been split into 4 pages.

## Huntsman, What Quarry?, Part II

by Kadru

Author's webpage: <http://www.mindspring.com/~kadru/index.html>

* * *

Huntsman, What Quarry? Part II - Page Four 

All that Brian Folsom saw was Collin's face suddenly closer to him, but what he felt threw everything into a miasmic sea of confusion. Something hard and sharp cut his forehead, just above his left eye, knocking him hard like a pellet, beginning a ringing in his ears that grew louder before it rattled into an angry, waspy buzz. He jerked his head down, the first thought in his mind that he had been glanced by a stray bullet. When he lifted his head again, slowly, like a child peeking out from underneath the cover of a blanket, he saw again Collin's face, but this time there was an unmistakable look of horror and some revulsion. 

A warm, oily sensation oozed over his skin, and instinctively, Brian sighed as the pleasure made his muscle relax. He had felt no better drug then this, not during any of his past wounds or recoveries, and the hazy high made him smile. Very slowly, as if disjointed from his body, he watched as his hand reached up to touch the very spot where he had felt the pellet. With his fingertips, he traced the hot liquid streaming down his temple, dripping over his eyebrows. His attention carried away, he peered down at the asphalt and marveled at the rain of blood that sunspotted the ground at his feet. 

The warmth grew hot, and he felt the first pin-prickles of sweat bubble across his skin. When the November wind brushed across his dampening flesh, instead of cold, he felt more heat and he groaned again. 

"Brian?" he heard Collin's voice, only not just once but several times, again and again like some multiple echo bouncing inside his head. In the distance, he heard more voices, Didion's shouted commands to Jim, followed by the gentle pop of another gunshot. The sound must have been louder to the others, because Collin jerked hard before gripping Brian's arms. Everything began to melt in the oppressive heat. His fingers lost their ken, and he heard rather than felt his gun strike the ground. His ankles disappeared, and he pitched backwards, struggling with Collin to remain standing, but his weight dropped, his spine thinning into a mist. 

"Collin?" he tried to ask, but the words trembled on his lips like a butterfly crushed by the wind. 

"Oh my god . . . Brian!" 

Above him, the blue sky seemed drawn with chalk, unreal in its color and lack of clouds. The massive live oaks spread their arms overhead, like rolls of greenish-brown clouds, and as the wind rattled them, he saw some of their spoon-shaped leaves unhitch themselves from their twiggy holds and spin downwards. Collin's face hovered there, too, the green eyes flashing, the auburn hair glittering with traces of gold and copper and his hand pressing so hard against Brian's forehead. 

The first clip of his heart frightened him, as Brian felt the skipped beat ripple through his body. "What?" he tried to mumble. Another beat misfired, then another. Every image took on a rainbow haze before sliding into a monochromatic, grainy world of gray, then only black and white. 

With wide open eyes, he watched the grains of white slowly dissolve into a nothingness of black. 

* * *

Didion watched the first Order assassin drop to the concrete, one arm hung over the metal railing over the edge of the parking garage, his legs unnaturally bent and angled and his neck slumped to the left. He took one full breath, taking in the scent of poison. As he pushed forward slowly, one step, before he could even react, he felt his gun buck to the right hard, snagged from his hand. Instantly his eyes recognized the curving sun shape of the throwing star that had just struck his weapon and he let his body take over, rolling him into the cover of two cars seconds before his hearing registered the metallic popping sound of metal star against metal car. 

"Ellison!" he shouted. Moving into safety, Didion focused on the attack coming from his left flank, and he spotted the senior assassin, leaning down into the triangle of space between the upper story and the ramp floor. "There's another one. On the ramp to the third floor! Get him!" 

Jim saw the tiny sliver of black metal stripping the air before knocking Didion's gun loose, and he watched helplessly as Didion rolled for cover, the throwing stars chipping the concrete before puncturing a car's hood. The attack stopped once Didion reached cover. Opening up his hearing, Jim easily recognized the sandy crunch of soft-soled shoes running across the concrete. He focused on the padding sounds, letting it inform his sight as he clocked the rapid pace up the ramp, across the third floor, and in the direction of the wall behind him. 

Ellison turned, his gun ready to fire, following underneath the footsteps until he heard the tell-tale ping of a human hand against the metal railing. Jim aimed his sights into the open space of the garage wall just in time to spot the black silhouette of a body jumping to the ground. He pulled the trigger, and he watched as the bullet sailed in the air, missing the flank, missing the chest, but reaching the assailant's shoulder just as he fell past. 

Didion saw Jim's hit, and he roused himself from the concrete, rushing to join Jim as they peered over the edge of the parking garage. 

The assailant was gone, but they could both make out the trail of blood through the tall weeds, heading towards the railroad tracks directly behind the garage. 

"Brian?!" 

Instantly, they both reacted to Collin's voice, and the two sentinels hurried down the ramp, back towards the others. In unison, they froze when they recognized Brian's prone body spread across the road between the hospital and the garage, his head in Collin's lap as Collin tried to hold his already blood-soaked hand over Brian's wound. With their heightened sight, they could easily see the lost and glazed look in Brian's light blue eyes. 

"Jim, go track down the last one. I'll deal with the police and tell the doctors how to handle the poison." 

Jim merely nodded, agreeing with a warrior's instinct that Didion's suggestions were good ones. He bolted out of the garage, running to the side until he could find an entrance through the chain-link fence, into the field of kudzu. He heightened his hearing to track the heartbeat and footsteps. 

Sebastian dashed out into the opening once he saw Didion, racing towards his cousin and the wounded man. 

"What's happening to him?" Collin asked as Sebastian knelt down beside him. 

Didion ran past them, into the hospital where a crowd of nurses, doctors and security personnel had already gathered. "All clear," he shouted at them with his badge displayed. "Get a gurney, now!" 

In the confusion, Collin didn't notice Blair at his shoulder until his felt his hand squeeze his arm. "He'll be okay," Blair said, his voice betraying his doubts. 

"What's wrong?" Collin asked again. "What's happening?" 

"He'll be all right," Blair offered again. "Here," he motioned towards the sudden rush of EMTs. "Let these guys in." 

Collin released his hold of Brian's wound just as several strong men lifted Brian from the ground and onto the cart. 

* * *

That morning, Ian spent time organizing his office and reading the detailed files of his patients. For several hours, he focused on all his patients except for one. Dealing with Quinn was still too much of a shock to his system. By eleven o'clock the only folder left on his desk was the one he didn't want to see, but he knew he had to deal with it. Several years ago, he had not done his duty as a physician to the utmost level, and he was paying for it. Making that mistake twice with the same man, however painful it was, was still unforgivable. 

Ian opened the manilla folder and began to read. There was more here than just his medical record. Apparently, after Quinn left the clinic, he had gone into a training program for hypersensitives and done very well. His field record listed him as one of their most effective "agents." Then, not more than a month ago, his senses began to spike. Then his ability to hear above a normal range faded. He had been in this facility ever since. 

The nurse who rushed into his room startled Ian and he dropped the file on his desk. "Doctor!" she shouted. "We need you." 

Struggling with his cane, Ian followed her out of his office, down the hallway. As he realized she was rushing into Quinn's room, he stopped for a second to refocus his will, then stepped inside. 

Quinn stood in the center of the room, his arms stretched away from his hips and his fingers splayed. A look of intense agony played across his face as he gasped for breath. "What's wrong?" Ian asked. 

"He says it's his skin." 

"Take the clothes off!" Jon cried out. "Take the goddamn clothes off!" 

The nurse tried to unbind the cloth robe around his robe and as she did, Jon flinched. 

"Wait," Ian said, pulling her aside. 

"You again?" Jon hissed through clenched teeth. "I thought I told you to leave me alone!" 

"Shut up and listen to me," Ian barked. "I want you to picture in your mind a dial. A dial with numbers on it from one through ten. This dial represents your sensitivity. Connect the two in your mind. The dial is at ten now. Focus on that image, and slowly turn the dial down to 9." 

"I can't--" 

"Do it! Keep turning it down. Believe in it. Keep turning it, again and again until you can feeling your skin tingle and grow numb." 

The room grew silent, the nurse standing back from Ian and Quinn. Quinn's gasps were the only noise to fill the room, slowly dissipating. After a few moments longer, Ian was able to place his open hand, for the first time in years, on Quinn's chest and the man didn't recoil. From pain, at least. Quinn slowly gripped Ian by the wrist and slung it away. 

"Thank you, Doctor," he groaned. "You can go now." 

"How are you feeling? Do you need to sit down?" 

"I said, you can go. 

" With a defeated sigh, Ian turned, but he stopped suddenly and shot back at Quinn. "You can believe what you bloody well want to believe, Jon, but know this. I had no idea that the treatments I was giving you would cause you harm. I was assured at the time that they were experimental treatments for increasing the speed with which the body healed. And after you died, I couldn't take it any more and I left." 

Ian turned again to leave. He didn't have the strength to endure Quinn's rage if the man didn't believe him. When he did, he finally noticed Kiegan standing in the corner with his arms crossed. The black officer only eyed him sharply, but what he said next he directed to Quinn. "Think about what I said." 

"I don't need to," Quinn answered as he collapsed into a chair. "You can start today." 

"Very well." 

Ian wanted to know what the two of them were talking about, but he decided he had had enough for today. As he left the room, Kiegan followed him, his arms still crossed. "That was impressive, doctor. Where did you learn the trick with the dial?" 

"From a friend of mine," Ian said sharply. "Don't you use something similar to control your senses?" 

"We were given several paradigms. Pie charts. Gauges. Sunsets and sunrises. Some men even use flowers. I . . . I had a partner who taught me to use a bamboo stalk." 

"Bamboo stalk?" 

"I was to imagine it growing or shrinking. No one ever gave us an active paradigm, like a dial." 

Ian shook his head as he continued to walk back to his office. Then he felt his courage grow as he asked over his shoulder, "What did you talk Quinn into doing, if I might ask?" 

"You can ask, Doctor. I just convinced him to take the new treatment so he wouldn't have to keep taking the anti-cancer serum." 

"So you're asking permission now, is it?" 

Kiegan grabbed Ian by the arm, hard, spinning the doctor around to face him. "Get it clear, doctor. We were the ones you did that to. Not the other way around. We were the victims, and I'm getting sick and tired of these barbs of yours. Is that understood?" 

Ian shook him off. "Understood . . . Captain." 

"One other thing, Doctor." 

"What?" 

"Captain Quinn is our best operative. He has the highest number of kills, and many of them are in hand to hand combat, which, I know you don't realize, is almost impossible against most Order assassins. It is imperative that this man get control of his senses and soon." 

"Thank you, Captain, but I bloody well know my job. And it doesn't matter whether he is Napoleon or some bloody potato-peeling grunt. My job is to treat him like a human being and to heal him. Period." 

* * *

The paperwork and bureaucracy of the morning attack ate up most of the day. Jim returned after ten minutes, shaking his head. "I lost him once he got back to the road. Someone in a car must have picked him up." Didion frowned but he nodded his head. They had at least taken one of them down. 

"Hey," Didion shouted at the officers who were milling around the assassin's body. "Didn't I tell you not to touch the weapons." 

"We have our gloves on," one of the officers threw back militantly. 

"Look at this," Didion pointed to the car door, the throwing-star still buried deep inside the metal. "Those curves are sharp enough to cut through steel. You think those gloves will do you any good?" Then he said softer, "One of your men is already in a coma because of it, so back off." He turned to Jim, his hands on his hips. "I try to tell people how dangerous these men are and no one gives a shit." 

Jim's only reply was his clenched jaw. Blair appeared at his side, carrying a white styrofoam cup of coffee. 

"Figured you'd need this." As Jim took the cup, he asked, "Any luck?" 

"Lost him. How's Folsom?" 

"Coma. Just like H." 

"Did you tell 'em how to stop it?" Jim asked Didion. 

"Yeah." 

"What now?" 

"Well, this is going to take up some time," he waved his hand towards the area. 

"Where are the others?" 

"Just inside." 

Jim allowed Didion to speak with the police as he and Blair walked back inside the hospital. Doreen, Collin, Sebastian and Marjorie sat, both bored and pensive, as they gave their reports to the police and waited for word, any word, about what to do. As they walked in, they heard Sebastian's calm but firm, "We can have you in a safe house tonight. Didion has some men coming this afternoon who can stay with you somewhere else, if you'd rather be at home. They can provide twenty-four hour guard until this blows over." 

Collin ignored his words and focused on Blair. "Well?" 

"I think you should do it," Blair suggested. 

"I meant Brian. Any word?" 

Blair shook his head. "I haven't heard anything." 

Collin nodded fatalistically before taking a sip from his now cold coffee. Blair recognized the defeated tone, and he stepped closer. 

"Don't get down about it, man. He'll be all right." 

"He's in a fucking coma, Blair." 

Blair took a deep, reassuring breath before adding. "That time you came by the station, do you remember meeting Detective Brown." 

Collin shook his head silently. 

"Kinda tall, stocky. Black guy. His partner was Detective Rafe. You remember, the good looking one?" 

"The one with all the clothes?" 

Blair smiled. "That one. Well, the same thing happened to Brown, and he was only in a coma for a day, and then everything was fine. He'll be all right." 

Again, Collin remained silent, drinking his coffee. 

Blair sat down in the chair beside him. "So, you wanna talk about it?" 

Without turning his head, Collin cut his green eyes over at Blair. 

"I mean, this has to be really awkward. What do you think about all this?" 

He cast his glance through the glass doors towards Didion standing outside with the local authorities. "What do _you_ think about all this?" 

Blair shrugged his shoulders. "So far the jury's out." 

"What happened last night that you wanted to tell me about?" 

Blair blew out all of his breath before running his hands through his hair. He paused for a moment to put his words together, then said, "Well, turns out those two drugged Jim into having sex with Lee Whitmore." "You're kidding." 

Doreen heard the comment, and she turned angrily towards Sebastian. "You did what?" 

Sebastian merely waved her question off with a brush of his hand. 

Collin narrowed his eyes as the anger welled inside him. "I can't believe . . . never mind." He looked up at Jim. "So what did you do when you found out?" 

Jim frowned before shoving his hands in his pockets and leaning against the wall. Blair answered for him, "Things got a little out of hand." 

"Please tell me you kicked his ass." 

With an arch of his eyebrow and a curt twitch of his head, Jim answered his question. 

"Good." Then he turned to Blair. "And you're right. I would have paid a quarter to see that. So what now?" 

"Well, nothing's changed, really. Seems these people really are after us." 

"So you trust him?" 

Jim answered, "Not really. Right now I'm taking everything on a case by case basis." 

"So you think I should go to this safe house?" 

Blair looked at Jim first before nodding. "Yeah. Better safe than sorry. Are you going to stay here with Brian?" 

"No," Collin answered quickly. "There's nothing between us." 

"Not even friendship?" 

Collin looked as if he was about to say something angrily, but he shrugged off the emotion, knowing it was Blair. "No." 

"So what do you think of him being here?" 

"Brian's being Brian. Super cop. He's not interested in the people, unless you count Didion." 

"You don't think he still has feelings for him, do you?" 

"Just revenge. Nothing else." 

"You didn't seem pretty happy to see him." 

Collin agreed. "No, I wasn't. And it only made it worse that the only reason he was there in the first place was because he assumed it had something to do with Didion." 

Jim interrupted, "Do you think you could be wrong?" 

"No," Collin answered. Made uncomfortable by the questions, Collin sighed heavily as he looked out the glass windows at the police cars and ambulances. "When are we going to leave? I thought I was finally going to get out of this place." 

* * *

Taking care of the details after the attack and getting Collin and his family secured in the Project's safe house took the remainder of the afternoon. Jim spent most of the time at the hospital going over the parking garage for any spare piece of evidence he could find while Didion managed the police. Jim wanted to have no part of that. He was already uncomfortable working with Didion and this Project, and claiming federal prerogative over the local forces rankled his sense of right. By the time Didion began negotiating with the others concerning the safe house, Jim was ready to leave, period. The looks on the other officers' faces bored into his guilt -- he knew that expression and he knew those resentments and he felt like a heel. This discomfort was enough to force Jim to encourage the others to take advantage of Didion's offer, just to hurry the afternoon along. 

Collin finally gave into to Jim and Blair, but both men noticed that he had lost most of his fight, and although he would not admit it, Collin's concern now was for Brian. The hospital staff listed him in critical condition but stable. Collin's sharp temper had been doused. Blair did his best to console him, to convince him that the morning ambush was not his fault, that the real targets were the four of them and not his family. Collin only half-heartedly heard him. He let Blair lead him to his mother's car, and they drove in a caravan to Decatur, into a quiet Druid Hills residential neighborhood that no one would have suspected held a federal safe house. 

The small brick ranch house was guarded by Army Rangers, but none of them were hypersensitive. "I've got two of our Rangers coming in tonight. They'll be in place tomorrow morning, and they can accompany you to whatever home you want to stay." 

"Didion, how long do I have to live like this?" Doreen asked. 

"Not long. Our staff will be back to full strength by the end of next week, and we'll be going on the offensive. Once we do that, the group who has targeted you and your family won't have the resources to threaten you." 

"Do you and Bass live like this every day?" 

Didion wasn't sure how to answer her. 

Blair scanned the home, looking for Collin. He eventually found him in the bedroom, a phone book in his lap and the phone to his ear. "Yes, thank you," Blair heard him say. "I'll hold." Blair sat down on the bed beside him and glanced down at the book, opened to the P's. Collin closed the book to keep Blair from reading any further. "Yes," Collin said to the voice on the other end of the line. "Oh. No change. No . . . thank you." He sighed, then placed the receiver back on the cradle. "You were calling about Brian, weren't you?" 

Collin considered lying, but he answered as he rose from the bed, "Yes." 

"How is he?" 

"Still in a coma." 

"He'll be all right." 

"That's what you told me." 

"You're worried, aren't you?" 

Collin shrugged his shoulders. "Not really." 

Blair knew it was a lie, but he decided not to fight it. "He'll be fine." 

"It's just like Ian. And you. I don't know if I can take this. I am not Scarlett O'Hara and I don't handle crises well." 

"Collin, as much as you'd hate to hear this, this is not about you." 

Collin just rolled his eyes as he forced a smile. 

"No, I'm serious. This is about Didion. The rest of us, we're just in the way." 

He nodded his head, but Blair doubted that he believed him. Finally Collin asked, "Did you get Ian's phone number?" 

Blair smacked his forehead. "Damnit. I forgot all about it. I'll get it for you tonight. I promise." 

By four o'clock, Collin, Marjorie and Doreen were comfortable and well-guarded. With that day-long distraction taken care of, Didion suggested to Jim that they examine the body of the young Order assassin, to see if they could discover some tiny lead that could pinpoint the location of their Atlanta base. Blair surprised himself by not being phased by the thought of spending time in the federal morgue. He supposed that the past three years with Jim had accustomed him to dead bodies. 

* * *

Just to the east of downtown Atlanta, in an area of forgotten history and forgotten people, rotting factories and decrepit housing projects competed with unread historical markers. Oakland Cemetery garnered more attention than the nameless faces that waited in front of brick two story housing projects, the windows replaced by warped plywood. Less than a mile from the cemetery, Martin Luther King, Jr., had been born. At one time, this had been the industrial heart of the city, the Georgia Railroad stockyards bustling with activity. The advent of the interstate that cut the Cabbagetown and the Sweet Auburn district from Grant Park fostered even more decline. Development and gentrification were only slowly polishing this part of the city, converting the antique factories into stylish lofts, but they only existed as anomalous vacuoles. 

In one of the abandoned factories, many of the windows were missing and thick weeds tangled between the road and the factory's brick walls. At one time, it had hummed with activity as hundreds of looms wove cheap fabrics. To the casual eye, the hulk of a building squatted there amidst the ruins like a forgotten child, petulant and resentful. Behind the cracked windows, a layer of rusting tin protected the interior of the factory from rain and wind. 

But behind the tin lay another layer of cinder block. Twenty years ago, the insides of the building had been gutted. An underground parking garage had been built beneath the weathered asphalt lot behind the factory. China-doll and mimosa trees, like weeds, had grown thick in the back, hiding satellite dishes. 

No one riding by would guess the existence of whirring data banks, brightly lit exercise rooms, and stylish offices hidden inside the crumbling factory's guts. 

Inside the infirmary, a brown-haired young man winced as the surgeon removed Jim Ellison's bullet from his shoulder. Before the pain became too intense, he forced his mind into a meditative state, thereby shutting down his pain receptors. He remained frozen in this position as the surgeon cleaned the wound and began stitching him up until he heard the sharp ring of a bell that broke his concentrate. He groaned sharply as his blue eyes opened, then he whispered, "Sedan, your grace." 

A tall, slender man laid the tiny metal rod he had used to ring the bell attached to the door frame, then he stepped closer. Sedan seemed almost gaunt with his pale skin, dark black hair cut short against his skull, but much of that appearance was due to his height and to the length of his arms. "Give me your report, Richmond." His black eyes stared through a skull-shaped face, making him seem even more ominous. 

"Aachen is dead, your grace. Didion Sachs shot him through the heart." 

"Hmm. He was too young." 

"We were following Cali's orders, your grace." 

"I understand, Richmond. She won't be giving orders much longer." 

* * *

The sun had set by the time the four men reached the penthouse. Blair collapsed onto one of the sofas, his arm across his eyes. "Man," he mumbled. "This sucks." Jim eased down beside him while taking his cell phone and notepad from his pocket. He flipped back the cover on his pad, leafed through a few sheets, then found the number he wanted. "Who are you calling?" Blair asked. 

"The hospital. Check on Folsom." 

Sebastian heard his old classmate's name, and he began to very slowly pace around the penthouse. He focused on the hearth, where just last night he had confessed to Blair something that he had assumed Blair knew. First it bothered him that Blair had gone for over a month thinking that Jim had violated his trust willingly, but as he proceeded, like a mendicant monk slowly pacing a labyrinth, the true nature of his remorse struggled to break free. 

He was bothered that he had hurt him to begin with. 

For years now he had harbored anger at Brian Folsom for hurting his cousin, but Blair's words in the parking garage of the NationsBank Tower reverberated through his ears, clanging like pellets on copper pots. He had hurt his cousin and his best friend by falling in love with Didion, and he had assisted in tearing Jim and Blair apart just as Didion had done Collin and Brian. /But those were different times,/ he tried to convince himself. /They were trying to kill Didion. He had no choice. He was suffering./ 

/Now there is no suffering. There are no chains. But the sins still remain./ 

He heard Jim offer his thanks to the nurse on the line before he hung up. "Well?" Blair asked him. 

"He's out of the coma, but he still hasn't regained consciousness. They're moving him to another ward." 

"That's a little better," Blair added. 

Sebastian continued to study the high-ceiling room. Here, Didion and Jim had struggled with each other, wrestling not just with the past but with their rage and resentment as well. He touched his cheek, from just above the line of his black goatee to the beginning of his trimmed sideburn. The cracked bone throbbed, as it had all day. Turning to look at Didion, he knew that his lover probably ached as well from Jim's many punches. Now, sealed in this room with Jim and Blair, even space seemed to hurt, as if the very air had become bruised by their conflict. He wanted to relax, he wanted to just sit somewhere and let the noiselessness cover him like cloth and soothe the physical and the emotional distress, but he couldn't. 

"Bass, you all right?" Didion asked as he came closer, his hand on his shoulder. 

"Didion, I don't want to be in here." 

"There's no where else to go, baby." 

"I've been stuck in this place for days. And if not here it's been at the hospital or in the car. I need to get out. I just need to walk. I need some space." 

"It's too dangerous." 

"What good are you if you can't protect me?" Sebastian snapped angrily, his hands rising to his face as if to ward off a wasp. He froze with his arms in mid-air and his eyes closed. He took a deep breath, then began again. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to say that. It's just that I can't relax in here." 

Didion remained silent for a moment, staring at the dark green velvet curtains that protected the two story arched windows. Both Jim and Blair waited for his answer. After a while, he said, "All right. I am hypersensitive. I know they can't surprise us." 

"They surprised us this morning," Jim threw out, like a dare. 

"We were distracted, and we weren't surprised for long." 

"What are you suggesting?" Jim asked. 

"Centennial Park isn't far from here. We could take a walk. Get some fresh air. Clear our thoughts." 

Sebastian didn't wait for the others to make a decision. He headed towards the hall closet to pull out his trench coat. As he was slipping it on, Didion offered to Jim and Blair, "Do you want to come with us?" 

Jim cocked his head at Blair but he didn't verbalize his question. 

As if on cue, Blair answered him. "I wouldn't mind seeing Centennial Park." 

"Let's go then." 

* * *

For the past two days, Blair had only seen the back portion of the One Ninety One Peachtree Building. They had been riding the elevator from the penthouse to the lobby and then to the side elevators down to the parking garage. This time, Sebastian led them towards the front atrium. Blair nodded his aesthetic approval at the five story atrium leading out to Peachtree Street. For the Christmas season, huge circular trees made from burgundy poinsettias flanked the corners. As before, the dark, formal, corporate atmosphere had been retained, the dark granite and marbles competing with the aged-patina, wrought iron chandeliers and sconces. The building felt so gothic with its curved and metal and stone, but at the same time, tempered with contemporary simplicity. He understood then why so many law firms populated the skyscraper. This building felt both new and yet old testament sacred -- not the radical Christ -- but the stern Yahweh. 

At the revolving doors, Didion stepped back, waiting for the others to exit first. Jim noticed the move, and something in his gut made him suspicious. 

Once on Peachtree Street, shadowed by the skyscrapers on all sides, Blair shuddered, but not from cold. "Something up, Chief?" 

"Reminds me of that dream last night." 

Jim sniffed the air. "I don't smell anything." 

"It's not that. I trust you." 

Speaking over his shoulder, Jim asked, "Which way?" "Let's go up to International," Didion suggested. "Up one block by the Hard Rock and Planet Hollywood." 

Looking down the street, Jim couldn't mistake the garish neon of the formulaic chain restaurants. He and Blair began a comfortable pace, enjoying the chance to stretch their legs in comfort. As they walked down the street, navigating the other tourists and waiting as Blair handed out dollar bills to the homeless when they asked, Jim kept his attention on Didion. The agent remained several feet behind him, his hand on Sebastian's shoulder, not as a form of comfort, but almost as a means of keeping him away from him and Blair. Again, Jim's suspicions climbed a notch. 

At the corner of Peachtree and International, Jim and Blair waited for the two to join them. "Now what?" Jim asked. 

"Several blocks that way," Didion pointed to the west. 

The streets weren't as well lit. "Are you sure this time of night is safe?" 

"You're a cop, aren't you?" 

"It's just a question." 

Sebastian spoke. "The park is pretty active at Christmas." 

"Fine," Jim muttered. "Let's go, then." 

They crossed the street, into the narrow confines between towers. There were other people on the sidewalks with them, but Jim could not sense the oily smell of the Order's poison. The further they walked, the greater the distance Didion put between the two pairs. By this time, Jim's suspicions had been bolstered to alert status, and his anger started to crest. This was no evening constitutional -- Didion was throwing the two of them out into the open ocean like bloody chum for sharks. Instinctively, his hand went out to Blair, to touch him, so that his fingers would know his exact location at all times. 

When finally at the park, Jim and Blair crossed the street before Didion and Sebastian had caught up with them. As they waited for them, Jim studied Didion's reactions. The blond agent's head jerked several times, catching sounds and spotting movement. His senses were obviously dialed up to his fullest power, and his instincts made him jumpy. 

Once the four of them had regrouped, Blair began to relax and let his attention drink in the details. The focal point of the expansive park, the Olympic Symphony, grabbed his focus first -- six rings of water spurting in a rhythmic dance of spray and splash. The temperatures had yet to dip to freezing, and the city kept the fountains running to attract more visitors. Surrounding the fountains, oak trees had been decorated in veins of lights, as if the tiny white points could replace their leaves. After a while, the anthropologists noticed the bricks at his feet -- all of them were stamped with names. He read them as avidly as he read books, pointing out several to Jim. "Hey, Bass?" he shouted. 

Sebastian and Didion had begun to drift away from them. "Yeah?" "These bricks . . . were these things for sale?" 

"Yes." 

"Did you buy one?" 

Sebastian smiled at a long-ago remembrance. "Yeah. I did." He looked around the park for a moment. "I found it during the Olympics. I think I'm over there." He pointed in the direction of the CNN Building. 

"What about Collin? Is he out here?" 

Sebastian strolled closer to them to answer. "Yeah, he's out here," he said, once he was closer. "But he and Brian bought one together. I doubt either of them would want to find it now." 

"Hmmm," Blair said with an almost judgmental emphasis. 

Hearing the tone, and feeling the frisson, Sebastian stepped back, then returned to Didion's side. 

The four of them remained in the park, walking peacefully in pairs, Didion remaining several feet away from Jim and his senses obviously on alert. Wanting to test him, Jim picked up an acorn from the ground. He rolled it between his fingers, cataloging the difference between the round shell and the pebbled top. He zeroed in on Didion before he dropped it. 

The agent jerked at the sound of the acorn striking the bricks. He spun around quickly, all of his senses measuring the moment. When he discovered nothing, he returned to scanning the park. By now, Jim's ire scored at full tilt. 

As the evening passed along, their casual stroll stopped at the string of monuments near the edge of the park. Jim stopped at the Quilt of Remembrance, a panel of stone made of marbles and granites from every continent. The names of the victims of the Olympic bombing were carved along the border, and Jim recalled the bomb in Cascade that had been so similar. When Didion and Sebastian finally came within range, Jim asked, "So, did you do this?" 

Didion stared at him for a moment, the anger so clear on his face. "Did I do what, Ellison?" 

"This?" Jim pointed down at the marble squares. "Did you plant this?" 

"Fuck you, Ellison," Didion spat with more vehemence than Jim expected. "And the fucking answer is no." 

* * *

The moment Jim stepped into the penthouse, he began to scan the living room, glancing from corner to corner. One eyebrow remained arched as he peered over his shoulder at Blair. He only needed to see Blair shiver once before a barely concealed smirk spread across his lips. Jim shrugged the coat off his shoulders, feeling the fabric brush against his muscles as he moved towards the gas fireplace. Very casually, he turned the knob to release the gas, just enough to annoy his sentinel senses, then he slowly paused before flipping the switch to light the fire, long enough to see Didion's nose crinkle from the smell. Jim waited for the man to pinch the bridge of his nose and squeeze his eyes shut before he started the fire. 

Blair noticed the fire and he immediately came over, slapping Jim on the arm. "Hey, thanks, man." 

"No problem, Chief. Let me crank it up for you." Jim raised the gas until the fire began to crackle. Again looking over his shoulder, he observed Didion's hand lift up instinctively to cover his ears before he could dial his senses down. 

Blair could only smile. "All right! Now we're cooking with gas." 

Jim frowned from the joke. "You can do better than that, Chief." 

With a cock of his head, Blair replied, "I can always take lessons from Collin." 

"Uh . . . no," Jim said with mock firmness. 

Blair rubbed his hands in front of the fire. "Hey Jim, why don't you ever build the fire up like this at home?" 

Jim didn't answer immediately, choosing instead to watch Didion settle down on one of the sofas, his seat furthest away from the fire. His hands reached up to rub his temples, and his eyes remained tightly closed. Squeezing Blair's shoulder, Jim finally answered, "Not my utility bill." 

With a smile, Blair patted Jim on the belly as he turned away. "So the reason I stay cold all the time is because you're cheap?" 

With his back to the fire, Jim held up his hands. "Hey, maybe I'm thinking there's other ways we can warm up." He then noticed Sebastian approach Didion. 

"You doing okay, babe?" Sebastian asked. 

Jim turned his attention to Blair as his guide flopped down on the second sofa, across from Didion. Blair reached for a book, opening to the page he had marked with a magazine subscription slip, then squirmed into the cushions to make himself comfortable. Jim slipped behind the sofa, turning on the lamp nearest Blair. "You need more light, Chief." 

Only Jim didn't notice Blair's reaction nor hear his whispered thanks. Instead, he focused on how Didion rared back just a hair from the light, shading his eyes with his hands. 

Sebastian rubbed Didion's knee and he whispered, "Lie back. I'll get you the pain killers." 

While Sebastian climbed the stairs to the bedrooms, Jim asked, "Light bothering you?" 

Didion just nodded, keeping his eyes shaded. 

From his seat on the sofa, Blair looked up. He knew that tone of voice Jim was using. He had heard it used several times during Jim's interrogations of suspects. It spoke of manipulation and calculation. Very slowly, Blair closed his book, setting it back on the coffee table, admitting no distractions. 

"What is it? A headache?" He motioned towards the fire. "Maybe a migraine if the smell is bothering you." 

Again, Didion only nodded. 

Jim came in closer, standing between the two sofas. "I get those too if I keep my senses dialed up too high for too long. Do you think that's what happened?" He heard Sebastian coming back downstairs with another one of Didion's mysterious orange plastic bottles. For a while, he remained silent as he watched Sebastian pour a cup of water, then return to Didion's side. 

"Thanks, Bass," Didion mumbled as he took both cup and pills from his lover. 

"More pills, huh?" 

This time, Didion raised one eyebrow. "If you have something to say, Ellison, say it." 

"Not much to say. I only noticed how you seemed to be hanging back tonight, and how you seemed to pick up on every noise." He motioned to Sebastian. "Looks like the two of you weren't having a good time." 

"Your point?" 

This time, Jim's temper came to the surface. "Why don't you start by telling us why you really brought us all the way from Cascade?" 

Didion rolled his eyes, his lips tight from the headache. "The answer is obvious. There's strength in numbers." 

"There's also safety. The bigger the school, the less chance you'll be the fish that gets eaten. Isn't that right?" 

Laying his head back against the sofa, Didion replied, "Jim, can we go over this tomorrow?" 

"We may not be here tomorrow," Jim replied firmly. 

That perked Blair's attention. "Do what?" 

Didion shook his head back and forth in frustration. "What are you talking about?" 

"I'm talking about you, hanging back from Blair and me all night." Then Jim waved his fingers in front of his eyes and his ears. "Having your senses dialed up so much you now have a headache. That's what I'm talking about. So what, you just using the two of us as bait or something?" 

Didion sighed heavily. "I am not using you for bait." 

"Then what's going on here? Why were you hanging back? Why keep your senses dialed up so high?" 

"And yours weren't?" 

"Mine didn't have to be." Jim leaned in close. "All I had to do was watch you." 

"Hey, Jim?" Blair asked, "What's going on here?" 

"What's going on," Jim began as he moved around the couch, "is that all this time Sachs here has been using us as bait, hoping these Order hitmen will pounce on us so he can get a good shot at them." 

Blair turned to Sebastian. "Is that true?" 

"Of course it's not true," Sebastian answered. 

"And you just expect us to trust you?" Jim countered. "I don't think so. At no time have any of you tried to earn our trust. Just like you did months ago, the two of you just walk up to us and expect us to take you for your word. The last time I did that, you . . . you tricked me into throwing Blair out of the loft, you . . . you _drugged_ me so that I'd cheat on him . . . and as if that wasn't bad enough you tried to kill him and now you want me to _trust_ you? You--" he pointed his finger at Didion "--are not going to get my trust because you are nothing more than a slimeball who thinks he can drape himself in some sort of superhero patriot cape." 

Didion rose from his seat on the sofa, staggering slightly before he caught his balance. Jim could easily see that his eyes were unfocused and reddened. He watched as Didion came closer until there was little space between them. "I don't know what I think of you, Ellison," he hissed. "Back in Cascade, I thought I liked you. In fact, I know I did because I almost let that interfere with my mission, and in a way, the fact that I did want to save you and Blair forced our mutiny because I didn't want to have to hurt you any longer." 

"Stop it. You're breaking my heart." 

"But you," Didion poked Jim in the chest, hard, catching him off-guard, "you spend all your life, sitting on your little throne in Cascade while Blair just flits around you, living life like a roller coaster ride. What do you know of danger? What do you know of making choices? Huh? I was _made_ into this, and what's more, I had to deal with my life being blackmailed, every fucking day. I _made_ no choices in my life. No pretty little dreams and mystic promises. I didn't get that. I got a disease. And while every morning the only thing you had to fear was a lucky punk, I had to watch the man I love be hunted, non-stop. I had to hold him every night so he could make it through the next nightmare and I had to look at the scars the Order put on him, and every fucking time I saw another of my brothers, I had to hear about how somebody I knew was dying inside because his lover had been killed. Yes, I killed people. People I didn't know. I did it because I had no choice." 

"You had a choice." 

"What choice did I have?" 

"Tom Poulson had a choice." 

"Tom Poulson?" 

"Yeah, Tom Poulson. He was my friend and he was turned into a sentinel and when they gave him the choice to die or kill, he chose not to kill. He chose to go into a monastery and die of cancer, and I held him when he died!" 

"Who told you this?" 

"Tom did." 

"You really spoke to him." 

"Yes, I spoke to him. I was there when he died." 

"Hmm, that's not the Tom Poulson I knew." 

Jim's heart skipped a beat. "What . . . what are you talking about?" 

"I know who Tom Poulson is. I worked with him." 

Jim's eyes grew wide as his face turned pale. "You . . . you what?" 

"I reported to him. He was my senior officer." 

"No." Jim turned his back on Didion. "That's a lie." 

"He left the Project. Became a monk last I heard," Didion added with a dismissive wave of his hand, "but he was no saint." 

"That's a lie!" Jim shouted again. 

Didion said to himself, "The man could turn so cold sometimes that he even made me afraid." 

"Shut up!" Jim raged, grabbing Didion by the lapels of his shirt. "I won't listen to this. Tom was not like you! He was a good man! I loved him and he would never have done these things!" 

Didion pushed him away. "Jim, I don't know what to tell you. He was. He did. Poulson turned away from the Project when his lover was killed. Poulson left for one night and when he came home, the Order had gotten to him. That's when he left, went to a monastery in Washington." 

"No!" Jim snatched at him again. 

Didion pushed Jim away a second time. "Let go of me, Ellison. I don't need you to be my tormenting angel. Every night when I go to sleep, I see the faces of the innocent people I've killed. I don't know how many of them there are. I lost count a long time ago. I stopped counting because I knew I didn't have to -- if I ever needed to count, I could do it in my dreams. And I know I'm not a saint, and I know that if I die, I'm going to hell. There's no redemption for a man like me. I'm going to spend my eternity faced with the people I've hurt. But one thing I know is that you don't know me. You never will. So I don't care if you trust me or not. The only person who needs to trust me is Bass, and I know he does. And I'm going to keep fighting so he can be safe. If you and Blair want to leave, then leave. I'm over this." Didion grew silent. He reached behind him for the arm of the sofa, to guide himself down, and he covered his face in his hands, rubbing away the ache in his temples. 

Jim didn't hear him. His mind was deafened by the revelation of his first lover's involvement as an assassin. He couldn't believe it. He couldn't believe that that kindly monk could have been as vicious as Didion. 

Blair, sensing Jim's confusion, rose from his seat, placed his hand on Jim's elbow, and guided him upstairs. 

* * *

He shut the door behind him, then Blair stopped for a moment to measure Jim's state of mind. The sentinel perched on the end of the bed, his head in his hands, shaking it back and forth, as if persistent motion could rattle the allegations from between his ears. Blair took a deep breath, then swallowed, rolling back his shoulders as if squaring for a fight. Slowly, he crossed the distance. "Hey, Jim?" He sat down beside him. "You want to talk about it?" 

Jim dropped his hands, pushing out his breath through his nose. "I can't believe the nerve of that guy." 

Blair nodded his head, his lips pursed. "So I take it you don't believe him." 

With a surprised cock of his head, Jim replied, "Oh no. Don't tell me you bought that." 

"I'm not saying that." 

"Well, he's lying. There's no way Tom could have been one of them." 

"He could be. . . . Didion seemed surprised you knew him." 

Jim jumped off the bed, whirling around to face Blair. "You fucking believe him, don't you?" 

"I'm just trying to piece all of this together, man. That's all." Then he added firmly. "Don't doubt me, Jim." 

His lips tightened with frustration. After a few moments, he reinforced his position. "Tom was a good man. You know that. You met him!" 

"I did meet him, Jim, and I did meet a good man." Blair rose from the bed to block Jim's pacing. "I also met a man who seemed to know a lot about the tumors he was facing. He even knew what kind of gene therapy he had endured. He said it was because there was an underground group of soldiers who told him, but if that's true, why didn't they get in touch with you? I mean, you were in that same clinic with all the others. The same one Ian worked in. He found your files. Why . . . why did none of these guys ever come up to you?" 

Jim stepped around Blair. His fingertips trembled as he brushed them across the top of his head once, then again, then again, each time faster and faster. "I . . . I knew him, Blair . . . and he would not . . . he would not do those things." 

"How long ago did you know him." 

"Don't!" Jim threw back at him like a punch. "Don't do this to me." 

Cautiously, Blair approached him, his hands outstretched until he could touch Jim on his upper arms. "Chill out, alright? I'm not doing this to make you mad, or to make you upset. I'm just trying to get some answers." 

"Then why aren't you asking those bastards downstairs? Why?" 

Blair's eyes drilled into Jim with courage. "Because I trust _you_ ," he answered. 

Jim scratched his left eyebrow with his hand. "Then ask yourself. You knew him, too. Tell me, right here. Right now. What do _you_ think of Tom?" 

He waited for a few seconds, piecing together his words before giving them voice. "I think he was a good man," he answered. "I think he honestly turned to God when he joined St. Sebastian's." 

"I loved him, Blair!" Jim tried to counter before Blair could turn his argument. 

"I understand that, Jim, but when did you love him?" 

Jim tried to wave the point away with his hand. 

"No, I mean it, Jim. You told me you were a teenager when you two were together. You told me this was boot camp. Now was it?" 

"Yes, it was!" Jim barked back as if offended of the implication. 

"Jim, man, that was like a long time ago. People change." He paused, and then included, "Sometimes back and forth." 

"I don't believe this. I don't believe this. You fucking believe him." 

"Don't assume what I believe, man. All I'm saying is that Tom Poulson being a member of the Project makes a hell of a lot of sense. It finally fits. You don't just . . . go to a monastery just because you become a sentinel. That's against all the literature. That's against all of the research that you and I have done together. Sentinels guard, man. They protect. They don't just give up and close themselves off behind stone walls and pray." 

"So what are you saying?" 

"Jim, stop it, all right? All I'm doing here is raising doubt." 

Silently, Jim turned his back on Blair and strolled towards the heavy green velvet curtains that blocked the glare of the bell-tower spotlights from streaming into the room. He gripped them in both hands, clenching them so that a star-ribbed pattern rose up in the cloth. "He was a saint," he whispered, the consonants quivering on his tongue. 

Blair's heart melted at the sound of Jim's embattled retreat. On silent footsteps, he came closer, laying his hand on the back of Jim's shoulders. "He _was_ a saint, Jim. The man I met, he was full of love and peace and serenity. I felt privileged to spend time with him." 

"He couldn't have done to us the things that Didion did." 

"Maybe he didn't. We can't know that, and I for one don't want to find that stuff out. I want you to turn this around, Jim. So what if he was a killer? So what if he came across two people like us and tore them apart? Imagine the worst or imagine the best -- it doesn't matter, man. What matters is that he turned away. Now Didion said he quit because he came back from an assignment to find his guide dead. If that's true, then empathize with that. Try to feel that. If you were in his shoes, and you had a death sentence hanging over you, and I was no longer there with you, would you let yourself die?" 

Jim walked away from him. "I wouldn't kill anyone." 

"Not even for me?" 

The question electrocuted him. Jim rared back, his eyes wide. "What did you just ask me?" 

"If it was a matter of life and death, would you follow the Project's orders so we could be together?" 

"What's wrong with you?!" 

"I'm just asking you a question." 

"Why do I feel like you're setting me up for a trap?" 

"Just answer the question." 

"No, Blair. I would not kill for you." 

Blair nodded his question. "Good. That's what I wanted to hear." 

"Was this some kind of sick test?" 

He ignored Jim to ask another question. "When you were in the Rangers, did you follow orders?" 

Jim just twisted his head to the side and glared at his guide. "I'll take that as a yes. How far would you let them direct you before you resisted an order?" 

Staring down at the floor, Jim pressed his shoulder against the wall. He rubbed his lower lip with his thumb. Finally he said, in a defeated tone, "Where are you going with this?" 

Blair closed the gap between them. "To be honest, I'm just letting my mind go down all the paths. The Tom Poulson I knew was a saint. In the short time that I knew him, he touched me. How many other lives did he touch?" Jim continued to keep his eyes centered on the floor. "He was a good man, Jim, and when he lost his guide, he lost his reason to live. Didion even said as much, when he said that the Order always targets the guides, because their sentinels break down afterwards. That's the reason why. Tom was in a great deal of pain and the one place he went to was the same town you lived in. He moved to Cascade to be closer to you, even if he wouldn't or couldn't visit you." Blair rubbed his arm. "The only difference now between Tom and Didion is that Didion rebelled." 

"No," Jim instantly reacted. "That man is not in the same category with Tom." 

"Maybe not yet." 

"You think he's good?" 

"I honestly don't know what he wants. I'm just asking a what-if. I don't guess it really matters." 

Jim dropped his arms to his sides and looked up at the top of the curtains. When he did, Blair could see the moisture in his eyes that he was holding back. "Jim," he reiterated. "This doesn't change who Tom was. He was still a good man. I personally am not bothered by the idea that he could have been one of them because it just makes him a stronger person for turning away. Look how far he came before he died." 

They stood there in silence for quite a while as Jim mulled over the implications. At last, his arms wrapped around Blair, pulling him into the warmth and comfort of his chest. Blair embraced him, his hands lightly tracing his sides to bolster him. Jim breathed in Blair's scent, along with the pattern of his pheromones that steadied him, like an unspoken truth that Blair could never tarnish, could never obfuscate. The man was not smoke. He offered resistance like a physical thing. He had been there by Jim's side, enduring those first few years as they grappled with their divergent selves to come to this mutual agreement of each other's need. 

Jim bent his head down, pushing his nose into his lover's hair, then placing a kiss on his neck. "Please be real," Jim managed to say. "Please be real. I need something to be real." 

Blair smiled, his hands giving Jim a reassuring squeeze. "I'm real, man." 

"Nothing's real anymore. I don't know what to trust." 

Blair pulled back, cupping Jim's face in his hands. "Do you trust me?" 

Jim stared down into those dark blue eyes. He didn't know if he could put into words an answer that would mean the truth for him. He chose movement instead. Jim lowered his mouth, pressing his lips against Blair's, first the sliding glance of skin barely meeting, then a second time, moist lip to moist lip, and on the third, open, his hand reaching up Blair's back to grip his lover's head. 

Blair molded to fit him, moaning slightly as Jim's tongue demanded entry, demanded to know Blair's response when stripped of words. Blair held himself steady, keeping his hands on Jim's flanks while the sentinel ran his open palms across his back and shoulders, reading his body like a book thrown open. The demand of Jim's mouth and tongue intensified, and Blair allowed himself to be carried away by it. Jim needed more than just his body, more than just his sex -- he needed to _know_ Blair \-- know his flesh and skin and cell as a man would know a building -- by working it with his hands. 

Blair opened his mouth, shaping it to match Jim's onslaught, letting the strong tongue probe into him, learning more than claiming, reassuring himself of substance and existence. All around him, powerful hands roamed, clutching and pulling, and Blair reveled in the ritual of it. He kept his eyes closed as he allowed the tactile sensations to wash over him \-- warm moist mouth, hard muscled chest, and desperate hands massaging him. Jim hungered for him as a means of salvation and Blair was prepared to accept that. They stood there, near the draped windows, their unbroken kiss like a lover's dialogue of rhymed couplets. 

Blair sensed his neck straining, and his knees complained from standing for so long. As if Jim sensed it, somewhere in his instinct, the sentinel guided him to the bed. Blair felt the mattress prod against the back of his knees and he let them buckle, falling back on the bed. Unwilling to interrupt this kiss, Jim followed him down. He balanced himself on his knees as he lifted Blair's weight, dragging him further onto the bed until they were both lying on top of it. Jim draped his size and bulk across Blair's body, and accustomed to it, Blair sighed from the pleasure of it, like a warm human quilt expressing more than just physical intimacy, but love and devotion and admiration and desire. 

As Jim's lips continued to wrestle with Blair's, his fingers fumbled with the buttons on Blair's flannel shirt. Helping him, Blair began freeing the bottom buttons, quickly moving to Jim's aid as the sentinel struggled with the second button. Jim literally groaned a complaint when they had to separate while Blair wiggled free of his long-sleeved jersey. 

Coming back together, Jim exhaled deeply as he drew Blair's naked chest close to his. His sensitive ears picked out the crunch of his lover's chest hair against his shirt, and he quickly maneuvered his lips to nibble and explore the man's neck and upper shoulders. Blair recognized that Jim needed to _know_ him, to catalogue his being, and rather than focus on Jim's clothes, he centered on his own. Jim needed to bear witness to Blair without any possible disguise. He toed the back of each shoe off his heels, then forced his hands between them to unbuckle his belt and unbutton his jeans. 

Jim clutched the hem of both Blair's jeans and his boxer shorts, and with a frantic tug, dragged both down his thighs. Blair assisted by lifting his knees and bending them close as Jim pulled them to his ankles and then tossed them on the floor. With Blair's feet still angled within reach, Jim stripped away his socks. 

Blair lay back, his naked body stretched alongside a fully-clothed Jim. His cock stiffened and his scrotum contracted to form a tight ball. Precome glistened on his dark brown cockhead. Jim at once took in the hundreds of details that assaulted his senses. His lips burned with each sucking kiss of Blair's hairy chest, the black curls wiry against his tongue. Blair arched his back, writhing from the pleasure Jim canvassed. Salt tingled on Jim's taste buds, spicing the particular flavor that was Blair, a sensation Jim had come to worship. His roving hands continued to measure every curve, every pulse and reaction, sliding down Blair's ribs, his flank, the horn of his hip and the length of his inner thigh. Swimming in just a bath of touch, Blair floated in satisfaction. 

The young man yelped when Jim bit into his right nipple, tugging on the silver ring there, then he settling into a long, low growl as Jim tempered his first bite with the flat of his tongue, circling the brown disk around the pierced nub. Blair's eyelids fluttered and his mouth hung open, his breath dragging across his bared teeth. Jim caressed and mothered the nipple, focusing on the feel of the firm flesh and whimpering sounds of his willing guide. 

Jim's lips surrendered this bud, exploring the area in the center of his chest where the hair grew thickest and brushed across Jim's nose. Blair's hands gripped the back of Jim's neck, trying so hard to fight the impulse to move Jim to the places where need cried loudest. The tip of Jim's tongue trailed from the chest, down the line of his tight stomach. With a moan, Blair arched his body to meet the wet point that both tickled and pleased. At Blair's navel, Jim swirled his tongue around the circle of flesh, and Blair rotated his hips in unison. 

When Jim's hand gathered Blair's balls into his sweating palm, Blair mouthed out his name, "Jim," and the sentinel felt his heartbeat hitch. He massaged the line from Blair's scrotum to his anus, pressing hard, making Blair open his thighs as if from an automatic response. 

Giving into the hunger, Jim swallowed Blair's cock without foreplay. Blair bucked underneath him, both hands pushing down on Jim's head and his rear rising into the air. Jim allowed Blair to ride his cock back and forth between his lips, and as he drew his right hand deeper into the slick crevice towards his hole, Blair assisted by spreading his legs even further. Blair trembled from the suction of Jim's mouth, pulling at his cockhead and making it tingle. He could only groan with anticipation as Jim's thick finger delved into the vulnerable channel, nudging the ring of muscle there. 

He winced when Jim shoved the first digit deep inside him, eased only by Blair's sweat. Jim twisted his finger inside the moist silkiness of Blair's interior, pumping his knuckle in and out of the ridged sphincter. Those muscles surrendered to the assault, and as they relaxed further, Jim inserted a second finger, and then a third. 

Now lost in the haze of too much sensation, Blair pistoned his hips, plunging his cock into Jim's mouth then impaling himself on Jim's insistent fingers. He allowed the rhythm to claim his body as Jim claimed him, unable to resist the dual manipulations between his legs. His thighs began to tremble and his lungs heaved as he felt rather than saw the stars of his orgasm flash inside his head, sapping the strength first from his hands and feet, then arms and legs, until at last he exploded inside Jim's mouth, his anus clenching tightly around Jim's fingers. 

Jim swallowed him hungrily, as if he needed to measure and record even the taste of Blair's ejaculation to prove his reality. Blair's cock flexed in his throat, spurting and throbbing as he coaxed the orgasm to its completion. Blair bucked a few more times, expelling nothing more but contracting his cock to milk the last drops before sinking, sliding to a final rest on Jim's fingers still imbedded deeply inside him. 

When Jim finally released Blair's sagging cock, he returned to the man's lips, kissing them, mouthing unintelligible words. Blair rolled onto his side, supported by Jim's left arm underneath him, hooked behind his shoulders. Still riding out the remains of his orgasm, he drifted in comfort as Jim's right hand slowly stroked him into a dazzled sleep. 

* * *

Sebastian pressed a cold, wet cloth to Didion's forehead. The other man hissed, his back arching, before he settled back into the cushions of the dark green couch. "Do you want to take another pill?" Sebastian asked as he took Didion's hand in his. 

"No," he whispered. "Let's give it a moment." His rubbed his thumb across Sebastian's fingertips, and the younger man knelt there on the floor beside him. 

"Did you mean what you said? Are you just going to let Jim and Blair leave?" 

"Yes," he hissed. "I thought we could work together, but all he wants to do is lash out at me." He took a deep breath, then he added, "I don't guess I blame him." 

"Do you think we'll be all right?" 

"We'll be fine. We'll have more men in Atlanta by tomorrow night, and we'll be able to start smoking the Order out." 

"What about Collin? What about my mother?" 

Didion opened his eyes. He rolled onto his side, his hand still clutching Sebastian's. "Don't worry, babe. I'm not going to let anything happen to them. They'll be safe." 

"What about Jim and Blair?" 

"I want them to be safe, too. If they go back to Cascade, all we can do is gamble that Burlington won't attack them before we can get our men to Seattle and hunt them down." 

Sebastian laid his head on Didion's chest. The agent wrapped his arm around him. "I wish they weren't so angry at us." 

"I know." He kissed Sebastian's forehead. "But there's nothing we can do. We fucked up their lives, Bass. They have every right to be angry at us. If Jim wants to leave, I can't stop him. I gave it a shot. It just wasn't good enough." 

* * *

Thursday, December 3, 1998  
Atlanta, Georgia 

A hazy mix of bluish darkness and orange light from the window slowly came into focus as Brian Folsom opened his eyes in the hospital room. For a few moments, he just lay there, staring forward, trying to understand what was happening. Finally, he lifted his hand to touch the wound on his forehead. The white gauze square almost felt hot against his fingertips. The pinch of the IV needle in the back of his hand pricked him when he moved. In a rush, he recalled the confusion of the attack, how both Jim and Didion seemed to instantly spark into action, like psychics in a science-fiction movie, drawing their weapons just before that strange metal disk pierced the side of the car. Collin had stared at the events with horror, and then he bolted. Brian remembered chasing after him, only to feel the smart crack on his temple followed by the waves of heat and disassociation. 

Lifting up on his right arm, Brian reached for the lamp. He flicked it on, flooding the room with light. Blinking a few times until his eyes adjusted, he then pressed the nurse's call button. As he waited for the nurse, he tried in vain to find a clock or a watch. 

"It's good to see you awake, Mr. Folsom," a young female nurse said sweetly as she entered the room. 

"What time is it?" 

She looked at her watch. "It's six o'clock." 

"At night?" 

"No," she smiled. "It's morning." 

Brian flopped back onto the pillow. He had been out since nine a.m. yesterday. 

"How do you feel?" 

Taking a deep breath, Brian rose up on his elbows again. His head throbbed painfully, but he fought it. "I need to leave," he said. 

Immediately the nurse pushed him back down. "That's not a good idea, Mr. Folsom. You were in a coma until seven o'clock last night." 

"A coma?" 

"Yes sir. So just relax. The doctor's not going to release you any time soon. I can bring you some breakfast in a few hours, if you're hungry." 

"Is there anyone else here?" 

She furrowed her eyebrows. "I beg your pardon?" 

"Is anyone else here . . . for me?" 

She smiled politely. "I don't think so." 

With her words, all of Brian's energy and resolve dissolved. No one was there waiting for him. He was alone. He immediately felt foolish that Collin wasn't there, because he knew his bedside would be the last place Collin would want to be. Turning on his side to face the window and the rising sun, Brian felt the emptiness -- palatable, tactile -- that he had known for two years. He had thought times were difficult that last year with Collin, when he had realized that he didn't love the man any more. How easy it had been for Didion to insinuate himself into his life. Here was another man working the enforcement field, tough, masculine, hardy, but somehow vulnerable in his newfound attraction for other men. It was as if he had asked Brian for help, the one emotion Brian had needed to fulfill -- the power of assistance. Collin had always been so self-reliant, independent and willful. He never asked for help. That had always attracted Brian in the past, but as their relationship grew older, he wanted someone who relied on him, who saw him as a powerful assistant and aid. 

Closing his eyes, Brian knew that the man he wanted was someone like Scott, his eerie partner. Scott had literally enchanted him. He never appeared to get burned out by the paperwork and the regulations and the bureaucracy, and no matter how painfully tragic the crime, he never lost his concern for the people he protected. Every day, he seemed to notice something, be it a smell or a sight, that he would share like a gift. Brian traced a circle on the edge of his pillow, remembering how comfortable it felt when Scott would poke him with his elbow before pointing out some new observation like a bow-wrapped present. Seeing both Jim and Didion in action had resurrected all of those memories, and Brian felt that soft, heavy pain inside him again, remembering the day when he had learned that Scott had taken his revolver and fired it into his mouth. 

Didion had caused that. He knew it. Scott had reacted to the letters and threats he had discovered hidden around the station -- not to mention all those red felt circles coated in incense oils. For weeks, Brian had assumed it was the other detectives, but they already knew about his relationship with Collin. In fact, he had been assigned to Midtown, the city's predominantly gay district, for that reason. Nothing made sense. So he focused on the red felt, and on the incense oils, and at the same time, he tried to come to grips with his residual feelings for Didion. After Collin had discovered their affair, Didion suddenly backed away, leaving Brian on his own and not returning his calls. Then Sebastian became involved, his own curiosity sparked by Didion's attractive good looks and vulnerable behavior. That summer held more drama than just a simple Olympic bombing and a string of unrelated murders of unidentifiable victims. 

Sebastian had been the one to discover the red felt and the incense oils while in Didion's apartment. No one had mentioned to him about the threats Brian and Scott had endured. He had no idea what he had found. He dropped the comment casually in front of Brian, and all hell broke loose. Brian remembered those days had been like hard, heavy blocks of stone falling into place inside his head and his heart, hurting him with each gritty slip into understanding. He arrested Didion on the spot, and in just a few hours of bringing him into custody, some U.S. Army officer waltzed into the office and they both waltzed out. It was then that Brian began to understand the breadth of the conspiracy against both him, Collin and Scott. 

Brian opened his eyes again and rolled onto his back to stare at the empty room. Empty. No flowers. No visitors. Nothing. Just like his life had been these two years. Most of his friends had been Collin's friends, and after Collin's breakdown, those friends blamed him for what had happened. Maybe if he had a partner on the force, he or she might be here for him. 

Maybe if he had a "partner," that man might be there, too. 

Collin came back to his mind. He missed him. That he had to admit. But a greater part of him felt too guilty for the way he had behaved when their relationship was falling apart, and he didn't feel he should even speak to Collin about it. 

It was all too telling that Collin, who was his last memory after the incident in the parking garage, holding Brian's head in his lap, was no where in sight. 

Brian closed his eyes, and hoped sleep would steal away the emptiness that seemed to hold sway in every portion of his life. 

* * *

Sebastian set down his coffee when he saw Blair climb down the stairs with his duffel bag slung over his shoulders. "So I guess this is goodbye," he offered. 

Blair gave him a tight-lipped smile. "I'm afraid it is." 

"I . . . I wish we had done a better job of proving ourselves." 

Blair shrugged his shoulders. "I guess you tried too hard." 

"Maybe that was it." Sebastian pulled Blair into a hug. Blair resisted at first, and then he melted into his old friend's arms. "I'm sorry, Blair. I wish it had turned out differently." 

"Me, too. Maybe next year. Give us some time to heal some things." 

"I guess. Please take care of yourselves." 

"You, too." 

"Ellison!" they both heard Didion shout from upstairs. Sebastian and Blair pulled away from each other. 

"What was that about?" Sebastian asked. 

* * *

Jim forced his suitcase closed, just as he heard Didion shout, "Ellison!" 

He rolled his eyes, then exhaled an exhausted sigh. Shaking his head as he exited his bedroom, he called out, "What?" He passed through the doorway of Didion and Sebastian's room to see the agent holding back the green drape. 

Didion pointed out the window. "What the hell is that?" 

Jim approached the glass. He let his eyesight focus on the NationsBank Tower in the distance, then dialed up his vision so that the pyramid grew larger, and larger, and larger. 

With his senses dialed up to their maximum extent, he examined the girders. 

Then he saw it, the loose skein of white cloth, tied to the very girder where Collin had been left, the ends trailing and fluttering in the breeze. 

In his mind, he heard the words: THINGS RETURN. 

* * *

For a few minutes, Ian remained outside the door to Quinn's room. His stomach churned and his fingertips tingled from nerves. He leaned against the door frame, gathering his courage before stepping inside. Normally, he arranged his floor visits so that he would see all of his other patients before dealing with Quinn's vehement rage. Once he had seen all of the other men, he would slip inside Quinn's room to be emotionally ravaged so that he could then retreat to his office to recoup. This morning, though, he felt he should handle Quinn first, to see if working with patients afterwards would dull the sting. Closing his eyes, Ian felt the heavy realization that his fears for so many years were taking physical shape before him. He had always accused himself of murder, even if he could argue a reasonable defense of his ignorance and his lack of malicious intent. 

But Quinn changed all that. To his face, Quinn threw all of the same accusations that Ian had leveled against himself. It now seemed too impossible to avoid. Ian had poisoned men against their will, he had altered their lives in such a way that there were no other avenues for them. He had, in a sense, sold them into bondage. 

Maybe if he worked hard enough, he could rectify all of that. 

Opening his dark brown eyes, Ian stared up at the white, pebbled, square ceiling tiles, letting their ordered patterns strengthen his resolve. He took one final deep breath, then plunged into the darkened room as if diving into deep water. 

Quinn lay on his bed, his breathing shallow and labored. No one else stood near him. As Ian approached, he could easily see, despite the dim light, the beads of sweat on Quinn's forehead. He frowned, looking down on this man who had once loved him, and he felt pangs of sympathy and regret. 

With a heavy heart, Ian reached for a white cloth that remained draped over the rim of a bowl of water. He twisted the cloth in his hands, and the rippling sound of water caused Quinn to gasp in sudden pain. 

/His hearing must be too sharp,/ Ian thought. 

As silently as possible, Ian stepped closer with the damp cloth, then as gently as he could, he brushed the sweat from Quinn's forehead. 

The captain flinched at Ian's first touch, then groaned with relief as the soft touches continued. Watching the way the man's face relaxed, Ian knew that Quinn had already lost his sight. He would never have reacted this way had he known that Ian was wiping his brow. But Ian couldn't resist taking this small moment for himself, seeing that rugged face ease and smile from his touch the way it had so many years ago. His fingers drew the cloth down Quinn's temples, across each cheek, over his chin as the man shifted his face to meet Ian's caresses. 

At last, Quinn whispered hoarsely, "Could I have some water?" 

Ian reached across to the bedside table and lifted the plastic cup with its straw. He touched Quinn's hand before placing the cup into his grip. Ian observed the captain taking deep gulps of water before he cautioned, "Don't drink so fast." 

At the sound of Ian's voice, Quinn froze, and a fierce expression appeared on his face. "Oh . . . it's you." He thrust the cup back at him. "Here to see me suffer some more?" 

Ian sighed heavily. He stared at his fingers for a few moments. He wanted to shout back at this man, to declare his innocence, but at the same time, he wasn't so sure that his innocence was really warranted. 

With soft whispers, conscious of Quinn's hearing, Ian began, "When I was a little boy, I was always an outsider. I never looked like all the other boys with their white skin and their round eyes. I had an American accent before I learned to speak like they did. The boys at Eton were at least polite, but they rejected me nonetheless. And so the only thing I could think to do was focus on books. To become smarter. It was the only thing I could really strive at by myself. You don't have to be a member of the cricket team to read a book. . . . I thought university would be different. Maybe the people at university would accept me. . . . I entered Cambridge early . . . and I found out I was wrong. Oh, they were polite as well, but I could still see it in their eyes. I suppose I became so accustomed to seeing it overtly in the eyes of the boys at Eton that by the time I got to Cambridge I was quite adept at seeing it when it was more subtle." 

Ian took a deep breath. He couldn't tell if Quinn was listening to him or not, but some part of him said that he didn't care. He needed to speak for himself, and Quinn could listen if he wanted to. 

"As you know, I even took a year off to be a punk in London. My father was furious, but that was perhaps the first response I had gotten from him in years. I was in love then and I didn't care. . . . but that only lasted a year, and I was alone again. I went back to Cambridge. After that I thought Harvard would be a better environment. American melting pot and all. By that time, I had gotten used to my solitary life." 

Ian rubbed his fingers together. "When I got out of med school, my father had something lined up for my residency. . . . you see, I wasn't even out of residence when I began at the clinic. I had no access to what I was doing or what was happening. Once again, I was outside the bloody circle and didn't know how to get in. Men were getting sick around me, and I didn't know why. I was just an ignorant, naive fool the entire time and . . . and because of it, I hurt you." 

Ian closed his eyes, more to hide the vision of Quinn's expressionless face than the need for inner courage. 

"After they told me you had died, I broke into the database and discovered the truth behind the Project. Dr. Coles tried to have me arrested, but my father used his influence to protect me. . . . but he couldn't protect me from myself. A few years after I moved to Cascade, I met this man, Blair. We used to joke that every time we got together, it would bring bad luck. He was trying to be funny, but in a way, he was right. I . . . I couldn't forget what I had done to you and so I finally stopped seeing him. 

"Then shortly after, I . . . I tried to kill myself." Ian turned away to hide the blushing embarrassment, even though he knew Quinn couldn't see him. 

"There was another man. Collin. I tried to make that work, too, but first _your Project_ \--" Ian let his anger finally slip. "--sent someone to kill me. Then, these Order people attacked him, too. . . so once again, I brought suffering upon someone I cared for." 

Ian stood up from the bed. "So maybe it's good that you do hate me. It would be for the best. All I seem to do is bring misfortune on everyone. But I never wanted to hurt you. I had fallen in love with you, that short time you were there, and for all these years, I've been dying inside from regret and guilt. . . . Good bye, Jon. I'm sorry." 

Ian turned and slipped out of the room. 

Alone with the sudden silence, Quinn mulled over Ian's words as his fingers gripped his blanket tight. 

* * *

The elevator shot upward, and Blair's stomach fell with the momentum. Once again, he was riding the high-speed elevator to the top of the NationsBank building. /Sixty-five miles an hour,/ he remembered, /sixty-five miles an hour. Building like sways eight feet from its base./ He swallowed hard as his heart beat fiercely. No one spoke. Jim placed his hand at the base of Blair's spine, rubbing small circular patterns, but he couldn't add any words of comfort or encouragement. The fluttering white ribbon Jim and Didion had spotted from the penthouse had both electrified and frightened them all. The security guard who rode with them rocked back and forth on his heels, completely oblivious to the tension in the other men. At last the speed of the elevator began to slow to a stop, and the polished doors opened with a hiss. 

Didion and Jim quickly pushed through the doorway, grabbing belts and strapping them on underneath their coats without any further comment. Sebastian followed, glancing over his shoulder at Blair. Blair remained in the elevator with his arms crossed over his chest. When the academic noticed Sebastian standing there, holding the door open for him, he sighed, then slipped out of the elevator like a man on his way to his execution. 

Quietly, Blair lifted the safety belt from the metal bar on which it hung, buckled it around his waist, then drew the blue straps over his shoulders. Jim watched his guide's slow motions, and he stopped for a moment. He wanted to do something for him, knowing that not only were there heights to consider, but the trailing ribbon of white they had noticed from afar was a message of some sort. As if Blair knew he was being watched, he lifted his head and looked directly at Jim, a thin, determined smile on his face. He nodded his resolve as he buckled the last shoulder strap and fingered the rope at his hip. 

The four of them waited for a second before Didion pushed open the door. 

When Didion and Jim sniffed the air, they instantly pulled their weapons from their holsters. 

"What is it?" Sebastian asked. 

"They've been here. I can smell them." Didion answered. He spotted the security guard behind them and told him in a stern voice. "Get downstairs, now!" 

"We need back-up!" Jim shouted back at Didion. 

"And we'll get back-up," Didion countered, "but not from these guys." He saw Jim about to argue when he held up his hand. "Jim, think about it. Those guys would be sitting ducks. We'd be sending them into a situation that they aren't in any way prepared to handle. I'm tired of killing men." Didion pulled out his cell-phone and tossed it to Sebastian. "Make the call," he said. 

Sebastian punched in a speed-dial code while Didion forced the guard back downstairs, telling him to have his men watch the video and be prepared for the Army Rangers when they arrived. 

"I guess I'm not the only guide who has to call for back-up," Blair tried to joke in the tense situation, but he failed to get a response from anyone. 

Once the guard was gone, Didion turned to Jim. "Can you hear any other heartbeats?" 

Jim shook his head. 

"I can't either. Must be the wind." Blowing out his breath, Didion then added, "Come on. Let's get up there and see what they left us." 

"Stay here," Jim said to Blair. 

"Don't worry about it," Blair answered. "I'll be right here this time. Promise." 

Didion and Jim ran up the metal stairs, taking steps two at a time. Blair stepped out onto the metal platform surrounding the supply room and watched them, his arms still crossed over his chest and his stomach tightened by nerves. So far, he only knew that the Order was dangerous. He knew they had slaughtered four street gang members in Cascade before Rafe or Henry could draw their guns. He knew they carried an arsenal of weapons. And he knew that they were so dangerous that the U.S. government had genetically altered their own men in secret to combat them. The rest, he could only imagine, and his imagination created nightmares more frightening than real. Watching Jim climb those stairs, knowing that he smelled them near, only made Blair even more frightened for them all. Jim and Didion reached the second level observation deck, then kept climbing, their feet echoing off the stairs. 

Sebastian removed his gun from his shoulder holster. 

"Do you know how to use that?" Blair asked. 

Sebastian only nodded, his attention rapt on the two men climbing the stairs as quickly as they could. Slowly, Sebastian stepped backwards, away from the supply room and the elevators, his right arm held stiff, steadied by his left, keeping a sharp eye on the steel girders above him. Blair followed him, adrenaline pounding in his heart. 

"What do you think this means?" 

Again, Sebastian remained silent, shrugging his shoulders. They were halfway between the supply room and the edge of the observation deck when a stiff, cold wind caused them both to take a step back. Already nervous about the heights, Blair's heart jumped into his throat and he gripped the metal railing beside him. Without thinking, he frantically pulled at the rope on his hip, taking the metal hook and clasping it onto the railing. 

Above them, Jim and Didion reached the third observation ring. They had another four stories to reach the last observation deck, the one that lay just below the long white skein of cloth that fluttered in the November wind. Jim stopped, opening up his hearing to trace any heartbeats, but all he could hear was the rushing wind. The oily smell of poison still tickled his nose, and he couldn't tell if it was getting stronger or weaker, but he knew, what with the rushing wind, that there had to be a constant source for it nearby. Any remnant scent would have been blown away long ago. 

He glanced down and saw Blair, five stories below him, that steely determination in his dark blue eyes, unconcerned about the wild strands of hair that blew about in the chilling wind. With his eyesight, it wasn't difficult for Jim to see the fear and nervousness in his guide, but Jim wondered then if he needed any heightened skills for that. It was obvious, from five stories away. Jim stopped there, looking into his eyes, and he couldn't help but feel his chest expand, despite the fear and sense of danger around them. Three years ago, Blair Sandburg had barged into his life, overburdened with confidence. Jim had seen him take vicious lumps from other officers, from criminals, from supposed friends, and yet, he still stuck by Jim's side, even following him here, fifty-five stories in the air on a cold, biting day, and although Jim felt ready to flinch, still Blair stood there, ready, waiting, prepared. 

Didion nudged him softly, and together they climbed the remaining four flights of stairs to the last observation ring. Following behind Didion, Jim couldn't help but consider this man's drive since the existence of the Order had been revealed to them. Didion had come to Cascade, intent on parting Jim and Blair, to distract them while he eliminated an Order assassin. He had done the same thing before, only Collin and Brian had been made to suffer that visit. Both he and Sebastian had claimed neither one of them wanted to harm anyone, that they were chained to a government that blackmailed them with Didion's life. Jim had to admit that Didion had prevented a second Ranger from killing Ian Yoshito. He had led a successful mutiny, even though that would never be recorded in history. He had reorganized the Rangers to focus on one thing -- killing the Order. Now, that focus on one goal burned in this man's eyes, in the way he walked, in the choice of conversation. As they scaled the last set of stairs to the fourth observation deck, Didion didn't seem at all hesitant. His guide remained nine floors below them, gun in hand and prepared to use it, just as focused and ready to kill. What kind of suffering brought out that kind of vengeance in someone? 

The two of them eased slowly out of the metal stairway and onto the open-grid platform. They scanned the open pyramid above them -- another eight stories of open space enclosed by the outer girders. A darkened shadow beneath the apex obscured Jim's vision. He tried to focus on the amorphic darkness, but the wind kept biting into his eyes. 

He could ask Didion. Didion's eyesight was sharper. 

A sense of pride and residual traces of anger prevented him from tapping Didion on the shoulder and asking him to scan into the topmost crevice for him. Didion remained focused on the satellite dishes below them, checking the niches and angles for anything hidden. 

Feeling secure, Didion holstered his weapon. He took a deep breath and ignored the dizzying heights and the stiff wind. With a grunt, he began to climb the outside layer of girders and beams, up to the flapping white cloth. Jim paused for a moment, unsure what to do, when he shoved his gun into his shoulder holster and grabbed the cold rust-colored metal. 

Nine floors down, Sebastian edged his way to the end of the observation deck to keep watch over them. He leaned his back against the brass railing, ignoring the spread of the city beneath him, and stared up at the gold spire. 

From so far down, it was difficult for him to see the hand ease out from underneath the spire that topped the pyramid. Then a leg, draped in black cloth. Before Sebastian realized it, a black-clothed figure crawled spider-like from under the gold spire and crept out onto the pyramid's edge. 

"Didion!" he shouted. "Look out!" 

The wind carried his words away. 

He wasn't sure if he could get a shot off the Order assassin yet, but he had to warn Didion. With careful aim, he stared down the barrel of the pistol, squared the nib against the beam just to Didion's right, and fired. 

The sharp blast caused Blair to duck, and in a panic, he rushed towards Sebastian and the edge of the first-level observation deck to see what was happening. He took one step when he felt a rough snag on his belt. Turning, he noticed the thick knot in the rope that had become jammed in the loop of leather that kept it attached to his side. Fumbling, Blair snapped the loop off, and the rope tumbled to the platform. He ran quickly to the edge and looked up at the spire. 

Didion nearly fell when the bullet slammed into the beam less than 10 feet away from him. Both he and Jim hugged the beam, then looked down the nine stories. Jim felt his heart skip a beat when he saw again just how high they were. 

They saw Sebastian take aim a second time, pointed at the spire as he fired again. 

Jim and Didion both peered up in time to see the black figure stand up straight on the beam. He paused for less than a second, before leaping backwards, somersaulting into the air as Sebastian's bullet ricocheted off the orange metal at his feet. Amazed, the other men just gaped at the daring, when suddenly they noticed the thin black rope attached to his waist. In seconds, the attacker grabbed the rope and arced with the wind back towards the pyramid. 

Didion raised his pistol to fire, but the assassin flew by them too quickly, landing on the third observation deck. Not waiting to take a second shot, both Jim and Didion pushed their bodies through the empty space between the girders, and jumped straight down, into the interior of the pyramid. They landed with a heavy clang onto the metal platform, rolling as their legs gave out under them. The two Rangers ignored the pain as they scrambled to their feet. 

Gunfire rang in their ears. 

"Go, go, go!" Didion ordered. "Bass has him pinned down." 

Jim grabbed the rope at his side. "Two can play at this game." He snapped the metal hook on a rail guarding the metal platform, then he crawled over the side. "Follow down on my rope!" Jim yelled as he held tight to the white rope and jumped. 

Not asking further, Didion scissored his legs over the railing, grabbing Jim's rope and sliding down right behind him. Quickly they descended the four stories to the third observation deck. The minute Jim reached the platform, he struggled with the belt, not wanting Didion to land on top of him. Noticing Jim's movements, Didion kicked out his legs, building up enough momentum to swing out, away from Jim as he dropped to the platform. 

Down below the Order assassin snapped his head around when he heard the gong of Didion's boots on the metal grid. In an instant, Blair spotted the long black ponytail. 

Nic Bekaye. 

Phoenix. 

Phoenix didn't wait a second for Jim and Didion to approach. Sebastian had to pull back on firing at him, afraid of hitting the two sentinels, and when he did, Phoenix sprang into action. He raced for the inside edge of the third observation deck, and while he did, his left hand grabbed a second rope that hung at his waist. Moving too fast for anyone to react, Phoenix gripped the metal railing with his right hand, levering his body up and over the railing, while his left hand attached a silver grappling hook to the bar. Like a curve of shadow, he swung the three stories, coming down to a graceful landing on the second level observation deck. 

Only two stories away from the guides. 

Neither sentinel had to speak. Didion worked the same stunt, snapping his rope's safety hook to the metal bar and jumping down with a similar grace that made Jim pause. "Come on!" Didion shouted back to him, and Jim stumbled over the guard rails and shimmied down the rope right behind. 

This time, Didion was ready. He popped off the rope's attachment to his hip and fell the remaining ten feet, just in time to duck. 

Phoenix had already drawn his slender, sixteen-inch sword. 

Didion rolled out of the way. He struggled to reach his own short sword, but it was tangled in the lining of his trenchcoat. 

Reading the danger, Jim jumped from the rope, landing with a thud on the metal grate. He fell to his knee, pulled out his gun from his shoulder holster, and took aim. "Freeze!" he shouted instinctively. 

Phoenix paused for less than a second, just enough time for Didion to stand. He swept back his coat, found the small sword in the lining and drew it out to parry Phoenix's thrust. 

Mindful of Jim's gun, Phoenix spun around quickly, maneuvering Didion's body between him and Jim. Unable to fire a safe shot, Jim ducked from side to side, trying to find a clear aim around Didion's body. 

The two swordsmen clashed, but their weapons were two short for any classical moves. Didion would slash at Phoenix, who deflected his blade and then punched at the Ranger with his left fist. Didion dodge the first punch, held up his sword to defend a forward thrust, then swung out his leg to trip the assassin. Effortlessly, Phoenix leapt over Didion's leg, coming down ready to fight. 

With Didion kneeling down, Jim saw his clear shot. He pulled the trigger. 

Phoenix's sharp peripheral vision noticed Jim's aim. He somersaulted backwards just as the bullet rolled an inch below his curving spine, missing him. Not waiting for a second shot, the Order assassin bolted behind a steel girder, ran out onto the outer ring of the observation deck. He clasped onto the brass deck railing, and lifted himself clear of the protective guard. With the skill of a surfer riding a wave, Phoenix slid down the angled beam, balancing his body with his arms until he reached the first level observation deck. 

During the gunfight, Sebastian had moved into the interior of the pyramid. He had left Blair leaning against the outer brass railing. 

In shock, Blair watched as the black clothed assassin slid down to within a few feet of him. He was dressed all in black. Even his face was masked. The only exposed skin was his hands and the rectangular bar across his eyes. Phoenix stood tall in front of Blair, his hands at his side. Looking into his face, Blair recognized the black eyes -- eyes that had once sparkled with boyish naivete -- eyes that had so easily seduced him for such a short moment -- that now were as cold and sharp as obsidian. 

Just inside the pyramid, Sebastian's heart froze as he saw Phoenix lift up his blade to strike Blair. He had only seconds to lift his firearm, aim against his site, and fire. 

Blair heard the blast at the same time that he saw Phoenix's sword sail over the edge of the building, spiraling down to the city below. 

Now he saw his chance. Phoenix was off-guard. The young academic balled up his right fist and he swung as hard as he could. 

Both Jim and Didion were clumsily sliding down the edges of the pyramid when the sentinel saw Blair's reaction. In horror he watched as the assassin took advantage of Blair's momentum. He avoided the blow gracefully, bending down to curl Blair over his shoulder. Then, with a sudden thrust of his thighs, he lifted Blair onto his back, grabbing the man's legs, then tossing him over the side of the building. 

Blair's scream came out coarse and full as he felt a sudden weightlessness surround him. He saw the city below -- the squares of the parking lots \-- the glint of sunlight on tiny car windows -- the leaf-stripped trees which looked like mere brown threads. His arms flailed out and he descended rapidly. 

The rope lying limp on the floor shot out quickly with him, only to snap taut so harshly that it hummed like a plucked string. 

Two stories below the edge of the roof, Blair's body jerked painfully from the sudden stop. As it did, Blair saw that the metal ring hooked onto the safety belt had bent. In a flash his mind came too and he knew wasn't falling. The safety belt had held him. Now he needed to tug on the rope to reduce the weight, or else the metal ring was going to give way. /Some fucking safety belt!/ He quickly wrapped the rope around his left arm to relieve the tension. He planted his feet firmly on the red granite and slowly pulled himself up, trying so hard not to look down. 

The instant Blair had been thrown off the deck, both Jim and Didion had leapt off the beams and landed on the platform next to Phoenix. Reacting with lightning quick moves, Phoenix plucked at a small pocket on his belt, removing one of his sun-shaped throwing stars. He hurled it a Sebastian who still stood with his gun aimed. 

Sebastian fell to the floor as the throwing star just barely missed him. 

Not waiting to see what happened with Sebastian, Phoenix pulled up his left leg and retrieved the dagger that had been sheathed there. He lifted it up in time just to defend himself from Didion's sword stroke. While Didion swung back to take a second attack, Phoenix lifted his right ankle and pulled out his second dagger. With just the daggers to protect him, he easily fended off Didion's attack, barely breathing hard at all. 

Jim ignored the battle. He had only one concern at the moment and it burned in him with inferno-heat. He grabbed the rope with both hands and began to heft Blair to the roof. 

Down below, Jim's first tug threw Blair off balance. He fell a second time, losing his grip. 

The metal ring on his belt bent into a sharp point. Blair fumbled with the belt to hang on. Looking up to the ledge, he saw Jim's determined face grimacing with the weight, hoisting him up with each handful. Now prepared for Jim's aid, Blair used his feet to push up on the sides of the building, easing up on the weight for Jim as he pulled him back to the ledge. 

Only six feet more and Blair would reach the edge. 

Deflecting Didion's blade, Phoenix glanced over his shoulder, and he saw Jim pulling Blair to safety. Without a second thought, Phoenix eyed the rope, narrowing his eyebrows, then he flung the knife directly at it. 

The blade severed the rope right at the edge of the metal hook. 

Blair reached for the edge of the roof, when suddenly a wave of nausea swept across his entire body. The weightlessness returned with a vengeance, and the granite blocks beside him began to blur with speed. Above him on the deck, Jim howled with blistering pain as the rope slid through his hands. The sentinel could smell his skin turn to smoke. 

Jim wouldn't give up. He refused to give up. He closed his eyes and screamed as the fire tore into his palms but he couldn't let go. He didn't dare. In an instant he offered up a prayer to all things holy and at that moment he felt a heavy knot in the rope bunch up against his fingers. Jim held onto the that knot with all his might, letting the force slam him against the side of the brass deck railing. 

Against the side of the building, Blair felt the rope snap again, and this time he heard the distinct ping of metal popping. He didn't need to see what happened. This time he knew. The metal ring that held the rope to his safety belt had finally snapped. Blair grabbed the rope and twined it around both of his arms before looking at his waist. 

The metal ring had snapped. The rope's hook remained attached by just the crooked bend. 

"Oh god oh god oh god oh god please," Blair panted, fear raging through his body. He couldn't move. His legs were like jelly. He had never been this close to death in his life. He had been close to bullets, and to poison, and to explosion, but nothing so final. There would be no surviving this fall. Not fifty-five stories. Not over a thousand feet. Nothing would save him. Not prayers. Not months in a hospital. Not even total reconstructive surgery and years of rehab. He would die, horribly, knowing his death would be gruesome and violent and that he would have to suffer it for over a minute as he fell. 

Blair already knew, from hanging onto this rope, just how long of an eternity one single minute could last. 

He would be dying forever. 

Back on the deck, Sebastian had seen the rope whip past his face. The knot had smacked him on the back of the head. His heart stopped beating in panic, and only when he saw Jim grip the heavy knot did his heart start up again. He sprinted to Jim's side, grabbing the rope. 

Then he saw it. The rope was red and slick from blood. Instantly Sebastian coiled to rope around his wrists to get a firm grip before turning to look at Jim. The sentinel's face was twisted with grief and agony, be he refused to let go of that knot. Taking a deep breath, Sebastian steadied himself before pulling hard with all of his weight. After one handful, he had to recoil the rope around his wrist and pull again. 

Suddenly Jim sprang to life. He wrapped his fist around a section of rope and pulled. 

Nothing happened. 

His palms were too bloody to grip onto the rope. 

He stood still for a moment, and then he looked down at the knot again. 

He filled his lungs with cold air, held onto the knot with both hands, and then pulled. He never let go of the knot. Instead, his muscled legs dug into the steel grid below his feet. He grunted and groaned as each step pulled him further and further from the deck's railing, and with each step, Blair rose another six inches into the air. 

To their right, along the outer railing, both Didion and Phoenix saw the weakness in Jim's plan. As the distance between he and Sebastian grew, so did the length of rope between Blair and the knot. All Phoenix had to do was sever the rope again, and Blair would fall to his death. Didion realized what Phoenix was doing when he flipped his dagger from his right to his left hand. His right fingers gripped the small pocket on his waist that held the throwing stars. 

Reacting instinctively, Didion gripped the side of his trenchcoat and flung it up into the air like a cape. 

Phoenix threw the star at the rope. It left his fingers. 

Didion's coat curled in the wind. 

The throwing star passed through the coat's heavy cloth. Deflected, it fell to the side. 

Knowing he would try again, Didion reared back on one leg and kicked Phoenix as hard as he could in the chest. 

But not before he threw another star. The metal disk spun in the air, turning gray with speed, before it nicked the edge of the rope. 

Jim saw the rope begin to unravel. He shouted like a bull, and both of his legs raced against the platform. 

Hanging against the side of the building, Blair was almost within reach. He felt the rope sing in his hand, and then the weightlessness came back. 

The rope snapped apart, and Jim fell hard on his back. Staring up at the sixteen story pyramid above him, he felt his world crumbled into a tiny painful pit in his chest. "No," he whispered. 

Back on the edge of the observation deck, the rope twisted around Sebastian's wrist. He shouted in torment as the tightened rope cut off his circulation, but he held on with all of his might. Growling out loud, he pulled as hard as he could. He had worked past the area on the rope made slippery with Jim's blood, and after wiping the blood from his own hands on his pants, he could finally get a dry grip. 

Seeing Sebastian still pulling, Jim rolled onto his stomach and peered under the deck just at the moment Blair's hand gripped the edge. 

Below, Blair couldn't let go of the rope for fear that it would finally snap free of the safety belt. With one hand, he held onto the ledge until Sebastian had pulled him up high enough so that he could hook his right leg over the side. 

Jim felt all the air spill out of his lungs when he finally saw his guide roll to safety back onto the roof. 

With shaking arms and legs, Blair landed with a huff face first onto the rough gravel. He didn't care. The black and white speckled rocks could bite him all over. Air rushed in and out of his lungs and he knew he was hyperventilating. /I fucking deserve to hyperventilate./ 

Phoenix saw his chance. He parried Didion's sword and snapped out his wrist. A short thick blade shot out. Catching Didion unawares, he punched him hard just below the ribs. 

Didion gasped as he felt the blade pierce his skin. Gripping the Ranger's shoulder, Phoenix threw him down to the deck, jumping over his body. He ran full speed to the inside railing and leapt over it. His feet crunched against the gravel on the roof, and Jim, Sebastian and Blair heard it at the same time. 

Sensing the danger, Blair staggered to his feet. Flashes of blue bubbled in front of his eyes, and his vision grew cloudy. He had just enough consciousness left to see Phoenix barreling for him. 

The assassin tackled him head on, his shoulder digging into Blair's chest. Weak from the struggle to climb back to the roof, Blair had no strength to fight him. 

"NO!" Jim shouted. 

Blair heard the voice of his sentinel. The ram of Phoenix's shoulder into his chest punched the air out of his lungs, and he could not call for help. He knew the trajectory. He recognized the irresistible momentum. Phoenix lumped him over his shoulder and kept running. Looking down at the gravel, Blair saw the hard edge of the building, that same short raising of stone that he had worked so hard to achieve. Phoenix's knees bent slightly at the edge, and together, they flew into the empty air. 

The wind caught in his sleeves, puffing out his clothes. 

Above him, hanging over the observation deck, he saw Jim's red hand reaching out for him, his face twisted with misery. The vision of him grew smaller and smaller as he fell. 

"BLAIR! NOOOOO!" 

* * *

End Part II . . .

Oh, come on. Of course I left it with a cliff-hanger. When have I not? Up next ... "Huntsman, What Quarry?, Part III," the final conclusion to the Project 57 series and my last Sentinel slash. Just remember that feedback keeps me inspired, and the more inspired I am, the faster I write . . . hint, hint!


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